The Past Revisited
by Reese M
Summary: Ororo lost Logan in battle ten years ago. Now her worst fear has come to life. She's lost her daughter as well. Or has she really lost anyone? Please R&R.. RoLo with a twist.. Finished..
1. Storms on the Horizon

**Disclaimer** I do not own the X-Men. They belong to Marvel Comics and the brilliant mind of Stan Lee..   
  
**Author's note.** This is my first X-Men FF. After reading some many wonderful Ororo/Logan family stories I thought I would give it a go myself, but of course with my own little twist. So here it is. Please read and review------------------------------------------------  
  
Lightening streaked the dark sky as rain pounded the black paved street. The wind blew harshly, bringing with it the heavy scents of sweat and blood. The ground shook as an angry crash of thunder roared like a wild beast. The air grew tart as it became more and more electric around her. It sizzled in her ears and stung her skin as she stood in the dark. She could hear the sounds of their boots on the wet pavement, smell them in the air, feel them approaching her, but from where? Something clicked to her left, she didn't hesitate. A long blue-sliver streak of lightening appeared in the oil black sky. It arched gracefully before diving towards the ground. The bolt of pure energy lit up the night long enough for her too see one of her assailants being hurled back as the charge hit him square in the chest, but there was still one more.   
  
The sound of heavy boots itched the inside of her sensitive ears. A large sweaty man was coming right at her. From the sound of his boots hitting the rain soaked street, he was running. Suddenly the rain changed effortlessly into snow and the wind changed it's direction and force. She felt her feet leaving the ground as the winds picked her up. The temperature dropped all around her and she knew that the wet street below her was icing over, or at least she hoped it was. Higher and higher she rose, until she was at what she felt was a safe height above the ice slicked ground. Lightening crackled around her as she raised her arms, once again bringing them out of the darkness. She watched as the man hit a patch of ice, slide across it with the aid of a strong gust of wind, and crashed into a brick wall. She hovered there with her arms crossed, as a satisfied snarl crossed her lips.   
  
Her attention was diverted as she looked at the two fallen men, her concentration broken, suddenly the lightening she was using to see though the dark began to intensify. The air had been charged from her frequent use of the harnessed electricity and now the very thing she had used to aid her was turning on her. It was an instant domino effect. As the lightening exploded above her it sent her hurling towards the ground, the resulting thunder shook her to her core knocking her off of balance. She was unable to regain control of the winds that now pushed her sideways. Within seconds she'd hit the ground, and several trash cans, hard.   
  
"Son of bitc..."   
  
"Alexandria!"   
  
The young woman looked up as the lights came on and the images around her faded back into the computer's memory. A tall slender woman with flowing white hair and icy blue eyes, mirrored images of her own, stood a few feet away. Her strong delicate arms were crossed across her chest as she leaned all her weight on one foot while the other foot tapped it's boot covered toe on the now grey titled floor.   
  
"Alexandria, what in the name of the Goddess do you think your doing?" The woman's voice was smooth, firm, and classical. Every word pronounced elegantly with just the slightest touch of a regal accent.   
  
Alexandria looked down at her forearm before looking up at the woman again. "I think I'm bleeding, that's what I'm doing, yeap that's it bleeding." There was just the appropriate amount of adolescent sarcasm in her voice as she replied to the other woman's question.   
  
The elder woman walked over and knelt beside Alexandria. She very carefully, very gently, looked over her wounds in a way that only a mother can. Then she gently shook her head. "How many times have you been told not to come in here alone? There's a reason it's called the danger room."   
  
"After I gained my powers or all together?" Alexandria smiled a little as her mother helped her up. Her smile quickly melted away at the sight of her mother's stern look.   
  
Silently the two women walked though the labyrinth of halls making their way to the infirmary. Alexandria wanted to ask her mother why she'd lost control over her powers, but she knew now wasn't the best of times. She could tell that her mother was at the stage where she was calming herself while preparing the lecture that was sure to come.   
  
Hank McCoy smiled as he watched Alexandria and Ororo walk into the infirmary. He walked over to a bed and patted it with a large furry blue hand. Alexandria hopped up and smiled back at Hank. "I got'em this time, Uncle Hank." She said proudly. "Not sure what happen after that though."   
  
"Well, you've certainly gotten better, or at least luckier." Hank said as he looked the girl over. "Just a few scraps and bruises this time. Nothing a good nights rest and the ability to heal quickly won't fix. I'll just clean them up and bandage some of the deeper cuts."   
  
Alexandria watched her mother as Hank reassured her that her daughter would be fine. The worry in her mother's eyes melted away but Alexandria could still see the disappointment. A small knot formed in the pit of her stomach as she wondered what punishment her parents would dole out this time.   
  
"You could have been hurt far worse." Her mother began as they walked though the empty halls towards the stairs that would lead to their loft. "You know your not allowed in there with out an adult." Alexandria began to zone out since she'd heard it all before. She couldn't help but think of the first time she'd been caught using the danger room after she'd gotten her powers. She wanted to practice calling up snow, but called up a wind storm that blew her into a wall, breaking her arm. Then there was the time before her powers emerged that she went in there looking for a program of father's. She ended up loading the wrong program and spent ten minutes running and hiding from a light projected Sabertooth before her Aunt Jean found her dangling upside down in a tree.   
  
"Child, are you listening to me?" Ororo asked her daughter as they stopped at the bottom of their stairs.   
  
The memories faded as Alexandria came back to the present. She didn't have to answer because her mother already knew that she hadn't been. Ororo just shook her head, which made Alexandria look down at the tops of her boots as her cheeks grew pink. She heard her mother sigh heavily and then felt her soft hand wrap around her chin.   
  
Ororo gently lifted her daughter's chin to look her in the eyes. "What am I going to do with you?" She asked softly.   
  
Alexandria opted to shrug her shoulders instead of replying with her patented, 'Adore me.'   
  
Ororo kept her stern eyes locked with her daughter's as she spoke. "As of right now you are grounded until further notice. Which means no concert with Rachel and no camping trip."   
  
"That's not fair!" Alexandria protested. "Rach and I have been waiting for this concert for months!"   
  
Ororo raised a delicate eye brow. "You do not honestly expect to have such privileges honored after this misbehavior?" Alexandria said nothing she simply crossed her arms and huffed. "You'll of course have extra chores to keep yourself busy and you'll not be allowed near the danger room, even with an adult for a month. Now I would advise you to go up to your room and remain there until dinner. I'll send for you when it's ready."   
  
Alexandria huffed as she threw her hands down to her side. She couldn't believe how harsh her mother was being. Alexandria flipped her long white hair as she turned to walk up the stairs, muttering under her breath the whole time. She'd barely gotten her foot on the stair when she felt a sharp stinging smack on her backside.  
  
"With a lot less attitude Alexandria Francis Munroe."   
  
Without stomping up the stairs like she had planned, Alexandria quietly climbed her way to the loft apartment that she and her family shared. It use to be just one big bedroom, her mother's bedroom, but when her mother found out that she was going to have a baby, Alexandria's father torn down a few walls, rebuilt some walls, and played around with the wiring and plumbing and somehow managed to turn most of the east wing of the mansion's attack into an apartment.   
  
Alexandria slammed the door shut behind her not really caring if her mother was still at the bottom of the stairs or not. She stomped though the living room, walked past her brother who was playing his game boy on the couch and stormed into her bedroom, slamming that door shut as well. Rolling thunder could be heard out side the windows and as she threw herself onto her bed a flash of lightening lit up the sky, even though it was still pretty much daylight outside. She heard her door creak open.   
  
"You better be careful." Her brother warned from the doorway. "Last time you got mad like this you broke three windows in the greenhouse."   
  
Alexandria lifted her head up from her pillow to look at her younger brother. He was tall like their mother, and unlike Alexandria who had relatively light skin, the perfect all year golden tan is what she called it, her brother's skin was much closer to the color of their mother's. Everything else though, his dark wild hair, deep blue eyes, stalky build, made him look a lot like their father, or at least like the pictures of their father that their mother kept around for them.   
  
"Shut up, Logan, and get out of my room!" Alexandria hissed as she threw a stuffed bear at him.   
  
Logan, being very agile for a ten year old, dodged the flying panda and laughed. "So what are you and mom fighting about now? Or is it you and Aunt Jean?" Alexandria's reply was to throw a shoe at him. "You can do better then that Lexie," Logan laughed as he turned to leave his sister's room.   
  
"Your right I can." Alexandria said as she threw a small bit of lightening at her bother. Logan yelped like a pup who'd just had his tail stepped on. Alexandria smiled a little as she waved her hand in the air, causing a small gust of wind to slam her door shut once again. 


	2. Life Moved On

***Disclaimer*** Marvel still owns the X-Men the only things I own are the thoughts and words that have built this story and of course Alexandria and Logan Jr. and what ever OCs may pop up.  
  
**Author's note** Just a heads up, this story contains a romantic relationship between Ororo and Jean. Please R&R.. Thanks.   
  
Ororo stood at the window of her classroom and watched as the storm out side began to subside. She sighed quietly before bringing the warm mug of herbal tea to her lips. Her thoughts lingered on her daughter. Her children were her world and even though she knew that all mothers and daughters fought, it still hurt when she and Alexandria did it. As Ororo brought the mug back down to rest on the window seal she could feel a pair of hands take hold of her hips. She smiled and leaned into the body behind her, enjoying the sensation of a pair of safe arms wrapping around her waist and holding her tight.   
  
"Was she in there?"   
  
Ororo nodded her head as she felt herself melt from the feeling of her lover's warm breath on the side of her neck. They'd been together for years. Friends who'd found themselves falling in love as they helped each other get though heartbreak and tragedy.   
  
"Is she alright?"   
  
Again Ororo nodded. "A few bruises and some pretty deep cuts but she'll be alight in a few days." Ororo could feel her lover's embrace tighten reassuringly.   
  
"So is that you, or her, putting on the light show out there?"   
  
"Her." Ororo said softly as they both looked at the rain falling against the glass. "She isn't very happy with her punishment. Which reminds me, you'll have to tell Rachel that she'll have to take someone else to the concert." Ororo's lover nodded. They stood there, together, Ororo safe in the arms of the only woman she'd ever loved, watching as the storm out side the window eased into a light sprinkle.   
  
"It looks like she's calmed down." Jean said as she rested her chin on Ororo's shoulder. "That or she's asleep, do you want me to check?"   
  
Ororo shook her head. "Either way just leave her be until dinner." Jean nodded as she brushed some of Ororo's hair out of the way so she could kiss her lover's neck. Ororo sighed lightly.   
  
"What's wrong my love?" Jean asked, sensing Ororo's troubled heart. The sky, which had become clearer, clouded over once more.   
  
"She's so much like Logan at times that it truly scares me, Jean. The lust for adventure, for action. Charging in powers blazing before thinking. It's what got him killed, and I don't want to lose her too." Tears had formed in the weather witch's eyes.   
  
Suddenly Jean understood. "Oh Ororo, how could I have forgotten what today is."   
  
"It's been ten years, Jean, and it's hard to believe he's gone."   
  
*Flashback*  
  
The weather witch's rain soaked the ground, her fellow X-Men, and the mutant that had brought them to the desert. He had been killing mutants all over the world, stealing their life forces, their powers for a reason no one really knew. He had laid a trap in hopes of calming his final rewards; The X-Men.   
  
He had underestimated them, they fought hard, defeated his android goons and were now ascending upon him. They stayed to far apart to grab all of their powers, but he would take at least one. His gaze drifted towards the sky. Rouge, Phoenix, and Storm all hovered there.   
  
Wolverine followed the mutant's gaze. His blood ran cold when he saw who the mutant was aiming his hand at. "NO!" He howled as a bright flash of light arched it's way towards Strom. Wolverine lunged forward as his claws extended from his hands. The mutant fell as Wolverine made contact with his chest. The flash of light hit Storm, sending her hurling towards the ground unconscious, but it did not engulf her.   
  
The mutant and Wolverine fought while Jean managed to catch Storm. Rouge charged at the mutant but he sent her flying into the Black Bird leaving her in the same unconscious state as Storm. Psylocke attacked him next, her physic knives at the ready. The air behind him began to blur and twist. The Gate Keeper was opening a portal. Wolverine hurled himself at the mutant again, but this time the mutant had been ready for him. He extended his hands, sliver streams of light snaked from his finger tips. Wolverine and Psylocke were engulfed in sliver bubbles. They each fought against it. Wolverine got one of his claws out though it's walls, but he quickly grew weak.   
  
Cyclops made the only choice he felt he had. He blasted the mutant, sending him backwards. The mutant held onto Wolverine and Psylocke. Cyclops fired another optic blast. There was a blinding flash of light, a laugh, and then a loud explosion. When the X-Men opened their eyes the mutant, the Gate Keeper, and their friends were gone. Everyone stood there in shock, everyone but Jean who was knelt on the ground cradling her best friend in her arms, as sliver dust fell all around them.   
  
Something sparkled in the setting sun. Scott walked over and picked it up. His hands shook as he held it. The only thing left of his friend, Ororo's husband, and her children's father.   
  
**End Flash Back**   
  
Ororo stood trembling as Jean continued to hold her, the memory as fresh and as vivid as it had been ten years before. "Alexandria still keeps his broken claw under her pillow." She said softly. "I didn't know what else to do with it after Scott gave it to me when I woke up. She asked for him every night and having it, having apart of him so close made it better for her."   
  
Jean lifted Ororo's left hand and gently traced a finger over the two metal bands that she wore. A sliver band, it's counter part gleaming on Jean's left hand, and a gold band, it's mate lost among the memories of a fallen hero. "It's alright to want to still fell him close, Ororo." Jean turned Ororo around to look her in the eyes. "We all still miss him."   
  
"How can you be so understanding about this?" Ororo asked, not for the first time since the two had become lovers. It had happened naturally. Jean had helped Ororo work though her grief over losing Logan, and later Ororo helped Jean though her divorce from Scott.   
  
Jean kissed Ororo tenderly on the lips and then stepped back. "It's simple my beautiful wind rider," She paused to give Ororo another kiss. "I love you, Ororo Munroe."   
  
Dinner that night had been relatively quiet. The weight of the day seemed to hang over everyone's head, everyone except Logan (Junior) who had only been an infant when his father had died. To him his parents had always been his mother and his Aunt Jean. He sat between them now as he hide his lima beans under his plate. He didn't like the mood in the air and decided to change it by doing what he did best. Getting his sister in trouble. "Lexie threw a lightening bolt at me today, Momma."   
  
Alexandria's head shot up just in time to match her mother's gaze. "We'll discuses it later, Logan." She heard Jean say. Her mother just sighed and Alexandria just went back to brooding over her meatloaf. She was glad that dinner only included family members, unlike lunch which during the school week was held in the dinning hall of the dorms. It was bad enough having her aunts and uncles and her grandfather seeing the way her mothers were looking at her at the moment, it would have been mortifying in front of her friends.   
  
Sometime during dessert the Professor had left the room, but Alexandria hadn't noticed he was gone until she was helping Jean clear the dishes from the table. That's when she noticed a familiar look come over the faces of all the adults. They were being summoned by the Professor and were starting to quickly file out of the room. "Nate, take Logan upstairs please. Then come and help the girl finish cleaning up before you head back down to the dorms." Jean said as she headed for the door. Nate nodded with out taking his eyes off the peach cobbler he was polishing off.   
  
Ororo and Jean made it to the door at the same time and instantly and with out thought their hands interlaced. "Straight to your room after you've finished, Alexandria." Ororo said sternly. Her daughter nodded her understanding and then smiled when she saw her mother smile at her.   
  
Rachel and Nate Summers sat at the kitchen table with Alexandria as dishes, cups, silverware, and cookware floated around the room. They'd gotten really good at using their powers to do their chores. Both Rachel and Nate had their mother's telekinesis power, so Rachel would wash the dishes and after Alexandria dried then with a warm wind, Nate would put them away. They never had to lift a finger or leave the table where they would play cards, or flip though magazines.   
  
Tonight though they sat there talking about the up coming camping trip with Hank, and about the Rolling Stones concert. "I can't wait!" Rachel screeched. "Mom's even letting me get a new outfit for the concert. I bet Aunt Ro will let you get one too, Lexie. We'll all go shopping this weekend!"   
  
Alexandria shook her head. "I can't go." She said as a plate flew across the room and crashed into the refrigerator.   
  
"Ookayy.. Something tells me your not just talking about shopping." Rachel said as she watched her older brother picking up the glass with his mind and then fusing it back together with a fine optic beam.   
  
"I'm grounded." Alexandria said coldly.   
  
Rachel shook her head and sighed. "Well that's ok. We can catch them again. I mean there's always going to be a Rolling Stones concert to go to. I mean they are mutants, I mean how else do you explain Keith Richards." Rachel was trying to make her best friend and pretty damn close to being her twin sister, fell better but it wasn't working. So she went on to see if it was maybe something they could sweet talk her Aunt Ro into letting up on. "So what was it for this time? Zapping Logan? He probably desired it."   
  
"He did but that was after."   
  
"Did you freeze over the lake again so you could go ice skating?" Nate asked. Alexandria shook her head.   
  
"Make it rain on J.J again?" Rachel asked.   
  
Alexandria's lip curled into a snarl. "John Storm Jr is an ass! You would think that damn self combustion gene would wear it's self out already. And no I didn't put him out again." Rachel laughed and Nate just smiled. They both gave her the 'what then' look. Alexandria sighed. "It's not fair. Nate's allowed to use the danger room alone."   
  
Both of the Summers nodded in understanding but Nate's the one who spoke up. "I'm a senior, Lexie, you'll get to use it when you've passed the tests too. Though you may wanna work on not breaking things when you get..." Nate stopped mid sentence when he felt a cold wind encircle him and his chair starting to lift off the floor. "Ok Ok.. I get it.. Now put me down, Lexie." Alexandria's eyes went back to their normal blue state just as Nate's chair hit the floor with a thud.   
  
It was late when Ororo and Jean finally made it back to the loft apartment. They quickly checked on Logan, Rachel, and Alexandria before retiring to their own bedroom. The meeting that the Professor had called had unnerved Ororo but she hadn't let it show until she was safely behind her bedroom door. "Don't worry my love, Scott and his team will check out the reports of androids attacking mutants, we'll find out if it's really him again." Jean whispered as she and Ororo sank onto their bed. Ororo just nodded. Something in her had already told her that it was him. He'd come back, but that was his mistake, because now he would have to answer for the lives he'd taken. 


	3. Anwering Questions

***Disclaimer*** Marvel still owns the X-Men the only things I own are the thoughts and words that have built this story   
  
The tension in the mansion had been thick for days. The adults all seemed on edge and the kids all felt left out of the loop. Clearly there was something going on but no one was saying a word to them, which was really starting to bug the hell out of Alexandria. She watched her mother closely as she sat on the edge of the desk giving her lesson on some old dead thing from the past. The normally smooth and graceful leader of the X-Men now seemed stiff, yet ready to pounce at a moment's notice. Alexandria had tried to eavesdrop on her parents hoping to hear something, but that's easier said then done when one of your parents is a telepath. Alexandria's mind drifted even further away from the room she was sitting in as she stared blankly at the fern on her mother's desk. Maybe it's the Brotherhood, she thought to herself, or maybe Sinister, or Magneto. There had to be some kind of great evil, massive trouble, or life threatening plot to do battle with to have all the adults in the house in such a mood.   
  
Soft mummers and a firm hand on her shoulder brought Alexandria out of her fantasies and back to the classroom. It was empty now, she hadn't even heard the bell. She shook her head a little to clear it and then looked up into the soft face of her mother. "Huh?"   
  
Ororo smiled, "Don't say huh, Dear." The tall white haired woman said as she sat on the edge of the table in front of her daughter. "I was asking if the lesson was really that boring. You seemed to zone out particularly early today."   
  
Alexandria's face flushed. "Sorry." She said softly. She smiled a little when her mother reached out and caressed her cheek. Her skin was always warm and soft and smelled of honey and flowers.   
  
"What's on your mind, Child? You seem troubled." Ororo asked as she titled her daughter's face up to look at her beautiful blue eyes.   
  
I seemed troubled? Alexandria thought to herself before chucking a little on the inside. She sighed a bit and then asked, "What's going on?"   
  
The expression on Ororo's face changed. It was still soft and warm but now also concerned and a little surprised. "With what, Dear?" She asked in return. She knew what Alexandria had meant but didn't feel like talking about it, and she didn't feel that her young daughter needed to be troubled with it.   
  
Alexandria rolled her eyes. "We're not blind or dumb, Mom. We know there's something big happening. You and Aunt Jean and the other's are all up tight and weird. So what are we facing?"   
  
"We're," Ororo started, making sure that Alexandria understood what she was saying, "facing Rogue's gumbo for dinner. The adults," again Ororo paused to make sure her daughter was understanding clearly, "are facing what the X-Men were formed to face. So don't fret about it, just let us handle what we need to. You worry about your mid-terms."   
  
Alexandria sulked for the rest of the day. She hated being brushed off and she hated being treated like a child. She was fifteen already but her mother still treated her like she was five. She bet her father wouldn't have blown her off. He would have told her everything. At the mere thought of her father Alexandria smiled. She'd only been five when he'd been killed but she could still remember a lot about him. The way he would toss her into the air and catch her. The way her mother would yell at him for doing that. The way he could hug her and her mother at the same time. The way he smelled like pine trees, cigars, and motor oil. Most of all she remembered his voice and the way he would tell her stories at night.   
  
It hit Alexandria like a brick. The adults all started acting weird the night of the anniversary of her father's death. Could that have something to do with all of this? Alexandria kicked at a pebble on the path that wound around the school, thought the woods and up to the back of the mansion. She didn't know much about how her father was killed. Her mother and Aunt Jean never talked about it. Though one time Scott had almost let something slip. He'd come back to the mansion for a meeting and had gotten drunk. She and Rachel had found him on the back patio and he kept going on and on about how sorry he was for the things he'd done. At first it was all about how he'd cheated on Jean but then he started talking about Logan and kept telling Alexandria he was sorry and that he'd only done what he had had to do. Alexandria was ready to get Scott to say more but Jean had come out and stopped him. She then shooed the girls back into the house. Alexandria huffed, her mother had given her the brush off that night too.   
  
Alexandria entered the house with out a word. She was still grounded so after grabbing an apple from the kitchen she headed up stairs to her room. She'd barely made it to the first landing of the main stair case when a familiar voice called out to her from down the hall.   
  
"So little sister, your just going to breeze past me without a word? Ok I see how it is. I'm no longer loved."   
  
Alexandria turned on her heel and then squealed. "Kitty!" Within seconds Alexandra had bounded down the stairs and threw herself at the slender brown haired woman standing in the hallway. Kitty Pride, like Rachel, was the closest thing to a sister that Alexandria had, and Alexandria simply adored her. "When did you get here? Does Mom know your here? Why are you here? I thought you were in London putting Scott in his place."   
  
Kitty laughed as she wrapped an arm around her little sister's shoulder. "This morning. Yes she does. Meeting with the Professor. Normally I would be cause some has too, but I'm needed here more so here I am." Kitty answered all of Alexandria's questions as she walked her towards the rec room.   
  
"Why are you meeting with the Professor?" Alexandria asked as she sat next to Kitty on an over stuffed leather couch. Kitty got the same look in her eyes that her mother had gotten that morning in her classroom, but Kitty never lied to her and she never brushed her off. Alexandria knew that Kitty would answer her questions the best she could. Even if it meant she'd be in hot water with the woman she considered a mother.   
  
Kitty took a deep breath and twisted on the couch to look at Alexandria. "Ro hasn't told you anything?" She sighed again when Alexandria shook her head. "Well she has her reasons, Lexie, so don't be to mad with her." Kitty paused for a moment and then the tone in her voice changed. "There's some big time trouble going down all over the place. I'm here to help take care of it." Kitty moved some of Alexandria's hair from her shoulders and then leaned back into the couch.   
  
Alexandria stared at the floor for a few minutes. So she was right, there was something bad lurking out there. She fought the urge to shiver, knowing that Kitty would ask her what was wrong. How could she admit to anyone that her greatest fear was losing someone else she loved in the name of duty, of humanity, for the dream.   
  
"Is it Magneto?" Alexandria asked. "Or the Hellfires?"   
  
Kitty shook her head. "No, it's not someone we deal with on a regular basis. We've only faced something close to this once before, and that was years ago. I was still a kid and you where only a little tatter tot."   
  
"Is," Alexandria paused, "Was my dad involved?" her voice broke a little.   
  
"Yes Alexandria, he was." Came a voice from the doorway. Both Alexandria and Kitty looked up and over at the same time. Ororo stood against the door frame with her arms folded. Kitty's face flushed and Alexandria just stared at her mother. "It's alright, Kitten, I should have told her but I, I was afraid too." Ororo walked over and sat across from the girls and then took a moment to think. "There's been reports of events that match events that happened ten years ago. Events that lead us to believe that the mutant," Ororo's normally clam and steady voice cracked a bit. "that the mutant that we battled when,"   
  
"The mutant that killed Daddy is back." Alexandria said as all the color drained from her face. Ororo nodded. "Why?" She asked as her body began to tremble. Ororo moved from the chair she'd been in to her daughter's side. She wrapped Alexandria in her arms tightly.   
  
"We don't know yet." Kitty said softly as she answered Alexandria's question. "but we'll find out and we'll stop him. Permanently this time." Kitty was looking at Ororo as she said this. She knew that her mother needed to be reassured just as much, if not more, then her little sister. Alexandria was still young enough and innocent enough to believe that the X-Men never fail. Ororo on the other hand new the truth. 


	4. Truth and Mistakes

***Disclaimer*** Marvel still owns the X-Men the only things I own are the thoughts and words that have built this story   
  
The sun was warm out side the large windows of the Professor's study. It was late spring and summer was starting to tease everyone with making days like this. Alexandria sat in the window seat of the window behind and just to the right of the Professor's desk. There was a cup of tea and a half eaten apple turnover beside her and an open copy of Weathering Heights in her hands. The Professor sat at his desk working while soft violin music filled the room as white noise. Alexandria felt so safe in the Professor's study, or maybe it was just being with the Professor himself that made her feel as if nothing and no one could touch her.   
  
Even though she felt safe during her Saturday mornings with the Professor, her mind was still troubled. She couldn't stop thinking about what her mother and Kitty had told her. The person responsible for her father's death was out there somewhere and sooner or later her mother, Jean, Kitty, and everyone else she loved would have to face him again. What if she lost one of them? What if this mutant took her mother away like he had her father? Had this mad man known that the man he killed had a family? Would it have mattered if he had? Alexandria gave up on reading when she realized that she'd just read the same page four times. She stared out the window a while and then finally turned to the Professor who seemed to know she was about to speak to him, because he turned his wheelchair around to face her.   
  
"Grandpa Charles, the team is going to need every able bodied mutant they can get to handle this, right?"   
  
Charles nodded. "Yes my dear heart, but that doesn't included you or the other children." He already knew what his granddaughter was going to ask before she could even build up to it. She wanted in on going after this mutant badly. She had the same longing look in her eyes that Logan use to get.   
  
"Why not? Our powers are strong." Alexandria huffed.   
  
"Yes they are, however yours are no where near as strong as your mother's, your still learning to use most of them, and you haven't quite gotten a grip on the ones you do know how to use. Besides, your only a...."  
  
Alexandria snapped her book shut and swung her legs over the side of the window seat. "Do not call me a child!" She snapped.   
  
"But that's exactly what you are, Alexandria, and please do not shout at me again." Charles' voice was soft yet stern as he looked at her. Alexandria blushed and muttered an apology. "I know you want to help, and I understand that your scared of losing your mother, or one of the others and that you want to be there to protect them."   
  
Alexandria looked at her grandfather oddly. Had he been in her mind? "No dear one, I haven't been in your mind. Believe it or not your not the only fifteen year I've dealt with, and besides your my granddaughter, it's my job to know you." Charles laughed lightly at the look on Alexandria's face which asked how he knew what she was thinking. "Your father use to get that same look on his face when he wondered if I had read his mind." Charles said as he moved his chair closer to her and then put his finger under her chin to make her look at him. "Do you really feel your ready to help the team? Even after what happened in the danger room last time."   
  
Alexandria's cheeks flushed. "You know about that?" Her grandfather nodded. "I guess not. Something always goes wrong and I lose it and I don't know why."   
  
"You lost focus." Charles said simply. "You stopped to look at the end results and allowed yourself to gloat, causing yourself to lose control over your emotions. Never gloat, Alexandria. There is nothing wrong with feeling proud of a job well done, but never gloat. And never allow yourself to lose focus. Always keep your guard up out there, always stay on your toes, don't allow yourself to let it go until your safely back in this house. These are the fundamentals your still working on, my dear heart, and as you get older you'll understand more."  
  
Alexandria took a moment to really think about what Charles was telling her and then nodded. "I would still feel better if I could go with them when the time came."   
  
Charles sighed a bit and took a few minutes to think about what to say next. "Alexandria, do you trust the team?"   
  
"Yes." She answered softly.   
  
"Then trust that they would never allow any harm to come to your mother or to Jean or to Kitty."  
  
Alexandria's face flushed. "I'm trying to, Grandpa Charles. I really am but.." Alexandria turned her head and looked out the window. She could see Rouge and Remy out by the lake, Hank was hanging up side down from a tree reading a book, and Bishop was shadow boxing in a shaded area of the yard. She sighed and shook her head.   
  
"But what?" Charles asked.   
  
"But they let my father be killed. They let Scott.."   
  
There was a soft knock at the door and both Charles and Alexandria looked towards the door. Alexandria wiped at the few tears that had formed in her eyes. "It's your mother and Jean. I think they should come in and join us."   
  
Alexandria shook her head with vigor. "I don't want them to know!"   
  
"You don't want them to know that your scared of losing them? Or that you blame the team and mostly Scott for your father's death?"   
  
"Both." Alexandria said as she turned back to the window.   
  
There was another knock and Charles sighed. "Very well, Alexandria. We'll keep this between us but I want to finish this later. I want to know why you blame Scott."   
  
Alexandria turned back to her grandfather as she wiped the last remaining tears from her eyes. She thought that her feelings about Scott would be obvious. He was the one who blasted the mutant just before her father was vaporized into sliver dust. She'd seen the tape from the blackbird, she'd watched it the night before over Kitty's shoulder. She knew about Scott's feelings towards her father. He hated her father, despite the fact that he was with her mother and loved her mother, Scott was always afraid that her father would take Jean from him.   
  
"Come in." The Professor called out after patting his granddaughter's cheek.   
  
Ororo and Jean walked in and looked between the Professor and Alexandria. "There you are, Child." Ororo said as if she didn't know her daughter had spent every Saturday morning since she was old enough to walk on her own with her grandfather.   
  
Alexandria smiled a little. Then she smiled a little more. Scott was so worried about her father, bet he never thought it would be her mother that would end up with Jean's heart.   
  
"Is everything alright?" Jean asked after noticing Alexandria's puffy eyes and the look on the Professor's face.   
  
"Everything is fine, Jean. Lexie and I were simply discussing Weathering Heights, and she seems to have the same reaction to the book as you do." Jean blushed a little. "What can we do for you ladies?"  
  
Ororo walked over and smiled down at her daughter as she wiped away the wetness on her daughter's cheeks. "We're heading off to the mall and was wondering if either of you would like to join us?"   
  
Alexandria's face lit up. She was still grounded and hadn't been out of the house in over two weeks. "For real? I can go?" Her mother nodded and Alexandria squeaked as she bounced out of her seat. She quickly cleaned up her mess and replaced everything on the serving tray which was placed on the edge of the Professor's desk.   
  
Ororo watched her daughter and tried not to laugh. "Well I guess that's a no then." Alexandria stopped and looked at her mother with a thunderstruck look which made Ororo laugh. "Go get ready, Child, and meet us out front in five minutes."  
  
Alexandria offered to carry the tray back to the kitchen but Charles told her to leave it be. She kissed her grandfather quickly and then dashed out of the room and up the stairs to her room to get ready. Five minutes later she was in the front seat of the mini van with Rachel. They'd put on Alexandria's Best of the Stones CD and were singing along to "Dude looks like a lady" while Alexandria blew the horn. The girls watched out the windshield as Logan, their moms, Kitty, Bobby, and Sam came towards the van.   
  
Rachel laughed out loud at the look on her sister's face. "Didn't anyone tell you that Sam was coming?" Alexandria shook her head. She had a mad crush on the blonde southern x-man and as he came closer to the van she could feel her cheeks began to burn.   
  
"Alright," Jean began as she opened the drivers side door. "Everyone under the age of sixteen," She looked at her girls and then at Bobby, "or who is mentally still sixteen get in the back with Kitty and Sam."   
  
Bobby looked around and smiled at Ororo, "Guess she means you." Rachel and Alexandria looked at each other and then at Ororo who was shaking her head with a small grin tugging at her perfectly lined lips.   
  
"Something tells me that she was referring to the person with the G.I. Joe t-shirt on, Bobby." Ororo said as she looked at the green camouflage shirt Bobby had on.   
  
Bobby looked over at Sam and then back at Ororo shaking his head. "That's not G.I. Joe, Ro, that's a big dogg t-shirt."   
  
Rachel, Alexandria, and Logan all laughed at the look on their moms' faces and at the grin on Bobby's face. "Oh come on Uncle Bobby! Just get in! You know they wanna seat up front together so they can hold hands and be all mushy at the red lights!" Alexandria spurted out between laughs.   
  
"Alexandria!" Ororo protested with a soft chuckle.   
  
Alexandria looked at her mother with a smile. "What?"   
  
"I assure you we don't need to wait for a red light to get mushy." Ororo said matter of factly. Everyone laughed again, which made it hard for Alexandria to climb into the back seat. The playful swats she got from both her mothers as she went between the two front seats didn't help either.   
  
Once they got to the mall everyone went their own ways. Jean and Ororo took Logan to get new summer clothes under his protests. He wanted to go to the game store with Bobby, who promised to take him once he was finished shopping with his moms. Sam tagged along with Bobby to the video game store and Alexandria went with Kitty and Rachel to the bookstore.   
  
"So wanna give me the 411 on why you blushed when Bobby and Sam said they'd meet us at the music store?" Kitty asked as they rode the escalator. Alexandria turned bright red again, she hadn't known she'd blushed in front of Sam.   
  
Rachel giggled. "Lexie thinks Sam's cute! She's crushing on him something bad too!"   
  
Alexandria's eyes widened. "Rachel!" Rachel just giggled again. Kitty smiled at her little sister who was trying to stutter something out. "Well.. Well.. You think Uncle Bobby has a nice ass!" This time Rachel blushed.   
  
Kitty just laughed. "Your both right, Sam is cute and Bobby does have a nice ass."   
  
The hours passed and the groups changed. Alexandria and Rachel spent some time with their moms, everyone meet in the record store, they all ate in the food court, the boys went to the toy store under the supervision of Jean, Kitty took Rachel to Gap and Alexandria and her mom went to the coffee shop. The stress of everything happening back at the mansion slipped away for those few hours, everyone was relaxed, and no one noticed that they had been watched all day long.   
  
Everyone met back at the van just after the sun had set, and they were all laughing and playing. They didn't see it coming..   
  
"There's two of them that fit the master's description." A horse voice whispered from the mall roof. "Which one do we take?"   
  
The two short men sat on the roof and watched the group below. They're orders were to grab the white haired wind rider, "He didn't say there would be two white haired, blue eyed, dark skinned, women. Should we take them both?"  
  
"The master only wanted the wind rider."   
  
The second man nodded his head and then pushed some of his dark green hair out of his face. "Then we find out which one is the wind rider."  
  
"Kitten! Get the children in the van!" Ororo ordered after the first blast hit the car three slots down from them. Kitty managed to get Logan in the van but neither Rachel nor Alexandria would get in.   
  
"What's going on?" Alexandria yelled as another blast rocked the ground beneath their feet.   
  
"Just get in the van!" Jean yelled as she scanned the area for who was firing at them.   
  
Alexandria growled. "I'm not a child! I'm not hiding in the damn van!"   
  
"Alexandria! Now it not the time!" Ororo scolded as she pointed to Bobby take a defensive position around the van and for Sam to power up and do a quick fly over. "Do as your told! Now, Child!" Ororo physically moved her daughter towards the van where Kitty was waiting with Logan and Rachel but another red blast of light hit close to them and they were sent flying. Ororo smacked her head on the curb and Alexandria hit the windshield of a parked car the next row over. Jean ran over to Ororo who was trying to get up, Kitty headed for Alexandria who rose herself off the car with a gust of wind.   
  
Alexandria shook her head to clear it but it didn't help. Her mind started to feel foggy and her blue eyes lost all color. They were perfectly white as the winds picked her up and held her in the air as a thick fog began to roll in. Ororo got to her feet but was still holding onto Jean. "She's lost control over it. Go into her mind and put a cap on her powers before she turns these winds into a hurricane."  
  
Jean reached out with her mind as Alexandria rose higher into the air, but it was to late. The two men who had attacked them came flying off the roof straight for Alexandria. "That one's the wind rider!" One yelled.   
  
Ororo screamed. "NO!" Her eyes went white as she began to rise into the air, but there was a bright flash of blinding light. The X-Men all fell to the ground until the light went out. Once they could see again they all looked frantically around, but Alexandria was no where to be seen and neither were the two men.   
  
Ororo had tears rolling down her eyes. "Alexandria! Alexandria!" She was still yelling out her daughter's name when she passed out. 


	5. Awaken to Evil

***Disclaimer: Marvel owns the x-men and they're the only ones making money off them.***  
  
***Author's note: Things get a little longer from here since I'll be writing from two different locals. And as always please let me know what you think so far.***  
  
There was a cold breeze in the room which caused the bare skin on her arms and legs to goose pimple. She shivered, waking herself fully from the hazy sleep she was in. She tried to open her eyes but the room was to bright. She tried to move but she couldn't. There were hard metal braces around her ankles, wrists, and chest, and there was something on her head. She felt light headed and odd. Her powers.. She couldn't feel her powers.. Alexandria started to feel more scared then she had ever been in her entire life.   
  
The sounds of footsteps coming down the hall itched in her ears. The sounds were far away but she could tell they were heading in her direction. She slowly opened her eyes to see where she was. The room was small with white walls. There was a small single bed in the corner with a night table and small lamp. She blinked trying to clear her vision. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was her mother pushing her towards the van and then feeling her feet leave the ground. What had happened? She shook her head in a vain attempt to clear her mind. There was an attack.. The ground rumbled, there was a bright flash of energy, the sound of shattering glass and then... Nothing.. 'Wonderful,' she thought to herself, 'I'm in some kind of cell, The Goddess only knows where, and with who, and for all my bitching and moaning all I can think about right now is how much I WANT MY MOMMY!'   
  
The footsteps where closing in on her and now Alexandria could hear voices. "So you had no trouble getting her?" One said. It was a heavy voice. Thick and grave. It made Alexandria shiver again. "Not a one master." Another voice said. This one was husky. The type of voice you would expect from an old man who'd had some hard years of livin', which he'd self medicated by smoking and drowning himself in alcohol. It was almost as husky and as harsh as her father's, minus the angelic tones that only a loved one could hear. "I am very pleased with you both. I have waited a long time to get my hands on the wind rider." The first voice said just before the steel door opened.   
  
Three men entered the room. One was old, tall, thin, and bald. The other two cowered behind him. They were both shorter then the first man. One had green hair and the other blue. They reminded Alexandria of the punk teens that hung out in front of Hot Topics at the mall. The bald man stepped closer to her and looked her up and down. Alexandria met his gaze and watched as his pale skin turned red.   
  
"Is this a joke!" He shouted as he spun to look at the men standing behind him.   
  
The men paled and backed again. They looked confused and freighted. "N...no.. master." The green haired one stuttered out.   
  
"Where is the wind rider!?" The bald man yelled.   
  
Alexandria couldn't help but notice that the top of this man's ears and the base of his bald skull were turning red, just like her grandfather when he was pissed. Only her grandfather never yelled. The two men looked at each other and then at Alexandria. 'Wind rider?' She looked at the men and they began to shake. 'They grabbed the wrong one! They were after my mom.' She thought to herself as she continued to watch the scene before her in silence.   
  
"Right there." the blue haired man said as he pointed to Alexandria.   
  
The bald man turned to look at her again. He walked closer to her and lifted her head up then turned back to his men. "This is not the wind rider! The wind rider it an adult you imbeciles! I can't believe you! I send you on a simple assignment! Bring me the wind rider! And what do you do?! You bring me a child!"   
  
"But.. but.. She's what you said.. Tall, white hair, dark skin, blue eyes." The blue man said quickly as he cowered.   
  
"And... We saw her.. We saw her call up the winds and rise up and.." The green haired man started but the bald man stopped him.   
  
The bald man turned and looked down at Alexandria. He studied her and she could feel her blood run cold. The man ran a finger along her jaw, then he drew his fingers though her hair. She jerked her head away from his touch but he grabbed her chin and held it firmly as he looked down into her eyes.   
  
"A child." He said softly. Then he smiled. "A child." He said again before bursting into a sickening fit of laughter. "Her child! You've brought me the wind rider's child!" He patted Alexandria on the cheek before turning back to his men. "Your stupidly has saved your useless lives for now. Leave us."   
  
The two men thanked their master for his kindness and then made their way out the door like Jubilee makes her way though Macy's the day after Thanksgiving. The bald man looked down at Alexandria once again and she could feel herself becoming sick. She wondered for a moment if this this how the Summers' felt when Sinister looked at them.   
  
"That is who you are isn't it my little wind rider?" The man asked. Alexandria didn't answer. "The daughter of the wind rider and the berserker?" Again Alexandria said nothing. Which seemed to make the man's smile brighten. He ran his fingers though her hair. Picking it up and allowing it to fall from his fingers. "Your as beautiful as your mother, my little wind rider, and according to my men you have her powers as well."   
  
Alexandria cringed at his touch despite herself. She also felt madder then she could ever remember. How dare he talk of her parents. Her father. Her father... It hit Alexandria like a fist. The man who stood before her, the man who held her chin in his hand, was the man on the tape Kitty had been watching the other night. All color ran from her honey colored skin. Alexandria felt sicker as she looked into the eyes of the man who'd killed her father.   
  
"Now my dear girl," The man said ignoring Alexandria's visible reactions to him. "The question is, did you also inherit that amazing healing factor of your father's?" The man smiled at her. "What do you say we find out?"   
  
Alexandria heard the blade being taking from it's sheath before the pain of it gliding across her cheek made contact with her senses. She screamed in pain despite herself. "Son of a bitch!" She jerked her head to the side as the man standing before her laughed again.   
  
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^  
  
Miles away a woman stood among the elements. Her smooth, fluid movements guiding the katana she held as it sliced though the chilled air. A ripple, a semi-familiar tickle in the physic plan stopped her cold. "Someone else has come." She said to herself. Elizabeth Braddock turned on her bare heel as she sheathed her sword. As she walked back towards the group of tents that had become her home, she tried to get a clearer lock on the physic impression she was feeling. It had been ten long years since she'd felt anyone from that time in her life and she was having trouble pin pointing exactly who it was she was sensing.   
  
Just as Elizabeth reached the end of the camp a man with short sliver hair came running up to her. "The Collector has brought someone though the gate." He told her in a rushed voice.   
  
Elizabeth nodded. "I felt them. Who is it?"   
  
"I don't know." The man said with a sorrowful look. "She's being held in one of the small guarded rooms on the third floor. I only got a brief look at her."   
  
"Her?" Elizabeth asked more to herself then the man standing before her. Then she nodded again. Yes, this was a female presence she was feeling. "What did she look like?"   
  
"Dark skin, long white hair, about.."   
  
"White hair?" Elizabeth asked. The man nodded. "Ororo?" Her mind raced for a moment. "This woman? Was she hurt? Was she... Alive?"   
  
The sliver haired man nodded. "She was unconscious, but Elizabeth, this wasn't a woman." Elizabeth looked at him oddly. "This girl didn't look any older then maybe sixteen, if that."  
  
Now Elizabeth's head was swimming. The last time she'd seen Ororo, the woman looked amazingly youthful and beautiful, but there was no mistaking her for being anything other then an adult over the age of thirty. Elizabeth closed her eyes and focused on the presence in her mind. Her body wavered a little where she stood. Then when the dizziness stopped she gasped out loud. "Get the child out of there, Thomas."   
  
Thomas nodded. "Shall I take her to the safe house?"   
  
Elizabeth shook her head. "Bring her to me."   
  
Thomas nodded again before running off. Elizabeth sighed. She couldn't believe what was happening. Of all the people he could have grabbed why her? Elizabeth's mind was full of all kinds of questions as she walked towards her tent. In the back of her mind she knew why the Collector had brought her here, he was going to use her to get what he wanted, but Elizabeth would not allow that to happen. She'd make sure her friends' daughter was safe before she could be used by the Collector.   
  
^*^*^*^*^*^*^  
  
Alexandria didn't heal as fast as her father use to, but the man had seen enough to know that she indeed had the power to. Alexandria sat alone, strapped to her chair, thinking of how to get herself out of this, and wishing more then anything she'd gotten into the van like her mother had told her. But if she had, would her mother be the one sitting here? The thought was almost to overwhelming. Even though she knew that her mother was most likely beside herself at the moment, Alexandria was glad she was safe at home with Jean and Kitty and the others. Her mother was safe and she was a big girl. She'd find a way back to her.   
  
Somehow.....   
  
Something clicked behind her. A sliding noise. She couldn't turn her head. She wouldn't scream. She could hear him behind her, smell him in the room, feel his heat as he came up behind her. A hand covered her mouth, then there was a sharp needle prick on her neck, then everything went dark again...  
  
^*^*^*^*^*^*^  
  
Jean sat next to Ororo's bed in the med lab. She held tight to her lover's hand while silent   
  
tears ran down her face. Ororo had passed out after the attack and hadn't regained consciousness since. Hank told her that Ororo had hit her head hard when she smacked it on the curb but there was no real damage. A slight concision, and she was in shock, but that was all. Jean didn't press the subject. As long as Ororo was in no danger, Jean felt it was better for her to be asleep until they had some answers to give her about Alexandria.   
  
"Did you find her?" Jean asked as soon as she felt him enter the room.   
  
Charles moved closer to her. She didn't need to see his face or hear his words. She could already feel his answer. "Cerebro can't locate her."   
  
Jean's shoulders slumped. There were only a hand full of reasons why Cerebro wouldn't be able to find her goddaughter and she didn't like any of them. "I've been trying to call out to her, but our link.. It's just not there."   
  
Charles put his strong loving hand on Jean's shoulder. "Kitty and the team are looking into everything they can to find her Jean. We'll bring Alexandria home." Jean simply nodded.   
  
In the war room Kitty sat a consol working with three computers at once. Her mind reaching for ways to find her sister. Nothing about what happened made any sense, but something in the back of her mind kept telling her to look harder. There was something she was missing and she'd be damned if she stopped before she discovered what that was.   
  
"Can I help?" Came a voice from the doorway. Kitty looked up from her screen to see Rachel standing there. Her eyes were puffy and her hands shook a bit. Kitty looked at Rachel for a moment before looking over at Rogue, and then she shook her head.   
  
"Not now kid." Kitty said rather flatly. Then she turned back to the search she was running.   
  
Rachel's face flushed. "Goddamit it Kitty! Your not the only one who wants to find her! Lexie is as much my sister as she is yours!"   
  
Everyone looked at Rachel in shock. Rachel hardly ever raised her voice, let along cursed, in front of adults anyway. Kitty rubbed her face and sighed. "I know that Rach. I'm sorry, I just.."   
  
Rouge walked over and put her gloved hand on Kitty's shoulder. "It's alright, sug. We all what Lex home." She then turned to Rachel. "Why don't we go to med lab and check in with your mommas, Sugar." Rachel looked harshly at Kitty before nodding and leaving the room with Rouge.   
  
Kitty watched then leave from the corner of her eye and then went back to what she was doing. "Where is she Lockheed?" The small purple dragon had no answers for his mistress. 


	6. Blast from the past

The weather around Elizabeth started to change quickly. The warm and sunny summer day was becoming dark, windy and cold. "Our guest is starting to stir my pet." She said softly to the falcon on her arm. The small yet powerful bird cooed his agreement. Elizabeth looked up at the gathering clouds and then back at the bird. "Go quickly friend and do as I have asked. Time is not on our side." Again the bird cooed, then he opened his wings and took off with a genital nudge from the tall black and purple haired woman. After watching the falcon for a few moments Elizabeth turned away from the tall grass she had been standing in front of and started to make her way back to the camp.   
  
The winds in the camp were harsh and cruel. The perfect match for the mood Alexandria was in. She opened her eyes slowly and rubbed her throbbing head. She looked around her quickly to get her bearings and found she wasn't in the small cell anymore. She was laying on a cot in a large spacious tent. She sat up slowly since her head was swimming. She shook it lightly to clear it and could once again feel her powers surging though her. "What the hell?" She asked the room. There was no answer. She remained on the cot as she closed her eyes, listening to everything and anything she could hear. There was water near by, a lake perhaps. People all around her. Birds, other small animals. Footsteps.. Someone was coming towards her again. "Well this time they won't get a chance to touch me." Alexandria stood and watched the tent flap.   
  
Thomas entered the tent with a tray of food and some tea. He was surprised by the sight of the child awake and standing but even more surprised at the girl's eyes. They were white as snow with no sigh of the brilliant blue irises or even pupils. The skies out side grew dark and a crack of thunder sounded angrily, shaking the ground under everyone's feet. A gust of wind knocked the try from Thomas' hands and then another knocked him backwards.   
  
"I'm getting really sick and tired of being knocked out and waking up in strange places." Alexandria hissed as she below Thomas out of the tent. She hovered in the air as she threw the man into a tree just out side the tent. Lightening flashed all around her. "So unless you wanna know how it feels to be deep fried from the inside out, I'd start taking Bub!" A streak of lightening landed at Thomas' feet. Alexandria kept him pinned to the tree with the winds.   
  
"That will be quite enough, Alexandria."   
  
The sudden voice in her mind started Alexandria, but she kept a grip on what she was doing as she looked around to see who had projected to her. "Who said that?" She asked as if she were talking to Jean.   
  
"I did, Lexie."   
  
Alexandria's gaze fell onto a tall woman with black and purple hair. Her fair skin and purple eyes, and the British accented voice opened memories of being five again, sitting in the sun room drinking tea and being read the complete works of A. A. Milne. "How do you know my name?" She asked the woman who was walking up to her. Alexandria kept Thomas pinned but moved a hand towards the woman who was coming closer to her. She recognized the woman, but it couldn't really be her.. She was dead.   
  
"I was there the day your parents' named you, luv." The woman said as she stopped walking against the wind. "You know who I am don't you?"   
  
Alexandria looked at the woman critically. "You look like someone I use to know, but she died with my father ten years ago."   
  
Elizabeth shook her head. "I can assure you, Lexie, I am far from being dead. But I don't blame you for being skeptical. You must be very confused and scared. I can prove to you I am who you think I am." Elizabeth looked up at the young girl and smiled.   
  
"I not only know your name, but I know how your parents chose your names. You where named Alexandria after the Egyptian city in which you were conceived." Alexandria blushed which made Elizabeth smile more. "You share your middle name, Francis, with Professor Xavier. Or do you still call him Papa Charlie?" She paused a moment. Alexandria had her full attention on her but she still wasn't letting up on the storm, which could do a lot of damage if she couldn't get the girl to clam down and believe her.   
  
"You carry your mother's surname because no one ever knew weather Logan was your father's first or last name. Although when your were naughty enough and your mother wanted to get your attention quickly she'd call your Alexandria Francis Logan Munroe. She still do that, luv?" Elizabeth could finally feel the winds around her start to ease as she spoke to the child in her mind. "Your godparents are Jean Gray and Remy LeBeau. Tell me Lexie, does Remy still call you Snowflake? And what was it he called you when you were being moody? Ah yes, his little thunder cloud." Elizabeth smiled when she saw Thomas fall from the trunk of the tree and dash away.   
  
"You have a little brother. Five years your junior. His name is Logan Henry Xavier Munroe. The first time you saw him after Jean brought you down to med lab you told him that you loved him and that you would share your momma and daddy with him, but that Kitty, Jubilee, Jean, Remy, and even Rouge, though she was his godmother, were off limits cause they were yours. You told him he could have Scott if he wanted him."   
  
"It didn't work ya know." Alexandria said as she set herself gently onto the ground. The winds had died down and the sky was starting to lighten. "He still acts like Aunt Marie is all his." Alexandria took a few easy steps towards the other woman. No one out side the family would have know what her fist words to her new brother would have been, nor would they have known that her Uncle Remy called her his little thunder cloud when she was mad or being a brat. "Aunt Betsy?" She asked still in disbelief.   
  
Elizabeth nodded as she felt a thump in her chest. She hadn't heard anyone call her Aunt Betsy in ages, and until know she never realized how much she had missed it.   
  
"But.." Alexandria said once she was face to face with the woman. "Your dead. You died with my father.. He," She shivered at the thought of the man who had held her in the cell earlier. "He killed you both. I saw the tape myself."   
  
Elizabeth smiled as she took Alexandria's chin in her hand. "Don't believe everything you see, luv. Video can be misleading. I am very much alive." Alexandria's eyes were full of questions and Elizabeth knew she had the right to some answers. "Come luv, we'll have a spot of tea and I will explain all of this as best I can."   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
A wicked summer storm raged out side the mansion as Kitty and Rouge waited for the video from the mall parking lot's security cameras to download. They'd been working for hours with no luck at finding Alexandria. "Looks like 'Ro's waking up." Rogue said as she handed Kitty a cup of coffee.   
  
Kitty looked up from the computer screen and out the window. "I was hoping we'd have something to tell her before she did." Rouge put a hand on Kitty's shoulder. "But everything happened so fast Rouge.. I can't.. It's all still a blur."   
  
"You should take a break, maybe take a nap, go down and see 'Ro. You need to let yourself process it all, Kitty. You've been in here since y'all got back." Rouge said softly. The younger woman was already shaking her head.   
  
"Rouge be right, chere." A smooth male voice said from the doorway. Kitty and Rouge both looked up and smiled at the Cajun. "You not do the petite any good if you to tired to t'ink straight. And 'Ro isn' gonna be happy if you go and burn yo'slef out."   
  
Again Kitty shook her head. "I can't just do nothing. It's my fault she's gone. If I had grabbed her, made her come to the van like Ororo told me then she...."   
  
"T'in she would have been fightin' to get back out of de van." Remy said as he leaned on the control island in the middle of the room. "That little bit o' thunder can be just as hard headed and stubborn as her ol' man was."   
  
Kitty leapt to her feet as she slammed her hand down on the console. "But she'd still be here! Don't you get it!" Kitty's rant was quickly interrupted by the sound of the computer beeping at them. Kitty sat down again and started to call up the security tape. The three teammates watched the tape completely though before Kitty started zooming in, clearing up, and extracting certain parts.   
  
"Who did the attackin' chere?" Gambit asked as he watched Ororo and Alexandria go flying on the screen. "The attack she look familiar to Gambit."   
  
Kitty shrugged as she continued to work. "I couldn't see them. I was in the van with Rachel and Logan. Bobby and Sam might have seen their faces."   
  
Gambit shook his head. "Not be the faces chere.. Be the powers."   
  
"Ya know sugar not that you'd said somethin'." Rogue said as she called up the attack on another screen. She replayed the section of the tape where Ororo and Alexandria were attacked and paused it. "There.. The plasma hitting those cars.. It comes in waves.. Kinda like Havok's use ta." Rouge said as she pointed out what she saw. "Then here.. The blast that shot at 'Ro and Lex.. It kinda looks like Scooter's."   
  
Kitty looked at what Rouge was showing her but it didn't make any sense. "Why would Scott be attacking us? And besides, Havok's been dead for years.. He was one of the first victims of that mutant that killed Wolverine and Psylocke."   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
"Alexandria" Ororo murmured as the storm outside continued to rage.   
  
Jean held tightly to Ororo's hand as she listened to the thunder out side. "Shh, my love, you need to relax before you take out all of Salem Center." She whispered into the ear which lay behind a sheet of white hair. Ororo's eyes fluttered open and she turned to look at Jean who brushed her hand down the cheek of her lover. "Welcome back beautiful."   
  
"Jean," Ororo said in a horse voice. "what happened? Where are the children?" She started to sit up but Jean put her hand on her shoulder and told her not to sit up to fast. "Jean." She said again more sharply.  
  
"Logan and Rachel are with the Professor, Kitty is working in the control room and.."   
  
"Alexandria is missing." Ororo finished. Jean nodded. There was a long pause in which neither woman said a word and then Ororo began to cry. "It was just like with Logan, Jean. We were attacked, I went down, there was a bright flash of light and then.. He was.. Now she's.."   
  
Jean sat on the edge of the bed and took Ororo into her arms. "No, Ororo. No, it's not like Logan.. She's not dead.. She's not."   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
"Ok," Alexandria said as she began to pace outside of Elizabeth's tent. "Let me get this straight. The guy with the green hair is a gate keeper. He has the power to open portals into other realties. Which is what this is.. An attentive realty to the one we come from. This guy was sent to grab my mom but grabbed me instead, cause this other mutant.. What did you call him? The Collector? What a dumb name. But anyway, this bad guy wanted to use my mom to get something back that he lost."   
  
Elizabeth watched the young woman walk back and froth in front of her. "Alexandria, that drives me as nuts as it use to when your mother did it.. Please, luv, sit down.. And yes that's the jest of how you got here and way, but it's only the tip of the whole bloody ice burg."   
  
Alexandria stopped pacing and sat next to Elizabeth. She still couldn't believe that she was sitting next to a woman who'd been dead to her for the past ten years. 'Ask her.' A voice in the back of her head kept saying. 'If she's here ask if he is as well." Alexandria shook her head to stop the voice and clear her mind. Everything she'd been told so far seemed like something out of one of her Uncle Bobby's sci-fi books.   
  
"Lexie," Elizabeth said softly, "are you alright?" The look on Alexandria's face caused the woman to blush. It was definitely a, 'what the hell do you think' look. A look she'd know anywhere since she'd seen it pass over Wolverine's face many times. "Right then, suppose not." Elizabeth took a sip of her tea and then looked at the girl once more. "Lexie, before we go on can I ask you something?" Alexandria nodded. "Since finding out who I was, and that I'm still very much alive, why haven't you asked me about your father?"   
  
"I'm afraid to." Alexandria asked softly.   
  
Elizabeth nodded. "How much do you know about the battle we died in?"   
  
"Not much." Alexandria told her softly. "My Mom never really talked about it. Like I said before I saw a video that had been taken by the blackbird's on board cam, but I was watching that from the doorway of the control room and over Kitty's shoulder. I saw enough though to know that the man who had me before is the man on the tape."   
  
"Well," Elizabeth said as she looked at Alexandria once more. "Let me give you the real story. You see," Elizabeth stopped when Alexandria stood up abruptly. "What is it?"   
  
"Someone in the field behind us." Alexandria said as she stepped out side. "I can smell them."   
  
Elizabeth stood and walked up behind her. "You have your father's senses?"  
  
Alexandria nodded. "Not nearly as good. Things don't drive me as nuts as I'm sure they did him, but I can pick up things.. Can heal real good too."   
  
Elizabeth watched as the girl's eyes began to white over. "No, Alexandria. It's alright. I think I know who is coming.. And I think you do too." 


	7. Reunion

***Disclaimer.. Read the first chapters..***  
  
***Author's Note: Is anyone reading this? Please read and review.***  
  
A short man with unruly dark hair, broad shoulders, and a gruff expression on his weathered face came crushing though the field's edge like a steam train, but when his eyes meet hers he stopped cold in his tracks. Alexandria stood next to Elizabeth wide eyed. Was she seeing who she thought she was seeing? She took a step forward but the man before her didn't move. They just started at each other.   
  
"I wasn't expecting you to make it back so quickly, Logan."   
  
Logan. Elizabeth had called him Logan. Alexandria just blinked.   
  
The man didn't reply to Elizabeth. He just started right back at the girl. She looked like Ororo, but her scent, it was familiar yet different. If he was seeing who he really thought he was seeing then she wouldn't smell like the five year old in his memory. She took another step towards him. Finally he looked at Elizabeth who just nodded her head. "How?"   
  
"She was brought though the gate this morning. Thomas got her out of the mansion a few hours ago. Collector will know she's gone by now."   
  
Her eyes locked with his once more. She could hardly breath. 'This is a dream.' She told herself. 'It can't be him.' He took several steps towards her and she held up her hands in defense just in case. He stopped.   
  
"How do we know it's really her and not a trap?" Logan asked. His eyes never moving from the child's.   
  
"I've scanned her mind. Besides, who else would be able to play with the weather besides the child of Storm" Elizabeth started.   
  
"Don't mean a damn thing. Powers can be transferred, that's his business after all."  
  
Alexandria looked at him. His voice was the same, his scent was the same, though it was missing the motor oil part, but mostly she knew his eyes. This man standing feet away from her was indeed Logan, The Wolverine, her father. She blinked again. She couldn't move, couldn't speak. She felt as if she were trapped in a dream.   
  
"Doesn't she smell like her? Well, anyway, she knows things and memories can't be transferred. Ask her something."  
  
Logan looked at the child who looked like a copy of his beloved 'Ro. He took a deep breath. "So if you really are my kid what did we do on Saturday mornings?"  
  
Alexandria bit back a smile at the memories. "We would sneak off on your scoot while Momma was teaching her dance classes. She didn't want me on your bike cause she thought I was to little, but I loved being on your bike. We'd go to the IHOP. You'd have the never ending breakfast and I'd have the chocolate chip pancake with the whipped cream smiley face. Afterwards we'd hit the comic book store and then slip back into the mansion just as Momma was getting out of class."  
  
Logan felt a pain in his chest as he remembered every time he'd taking his little darlin' out for a ride on his Harley. She did love it, almost if not more then he did. "Awfully detailed memory for something that would have happened fifteen years ago."  
  
Was he testing her? "Ten years.. And you'd be surprised at the memories a kid will hold on to with dear life when they think it's the last ones they'll ever have of their father." There was pain in her voice which surprised Alexandria. She should be happy to no end that she'd just found her father very much alive, but for some reason there was also a stab of anger and hurt there. Logan kept looking at her as if he were trying to make up his mind as to weather or not she was indeed who he though she was. This was starting to tick her off. He should know it was her. "Your missing a part of one of your claws on one of your hands right?" Logan didn't reply. Alexandria pulled a chain out from around her neck.   
  
On the end of the chain was the tip of an adamantium claw with a gold lightening bolt in the center. "I think this belongs to you."  
  
"How'd you get that, kid?"   
  
"Mom gave me this after you died. I use to keep it under my pillow but Uncle Remy had this made for me after I cut up my hand one night. Used one of Mom's old earrings for the bolt."  
  
Logan walked over to the girl and picked up the claw piece and then he popped the claws on his left hand. Sure enough it was a match. There was another few moments where the two only looked at each other and then Logan finally gave in. "Lexie." Logan wrapped his arms around the girl and Alexandria collapsed into her father's arms.   
  
"Daddy."   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
"So all we have is that the attack came from someone with powers like the Summers brothers?" Jean asked as she sat next to Ororo in Professor's study.   
  
Kitty nodded. She hadn't been able to look Ororo in the eyes since she'd come up from the med lab. Ororo, who was holding tightly onto Jean's hand, had tried to get her too, but she just couldn't.   
  
"Yes," the Professor began as he looked around the room at his X-Men. "Unless anyone else has anything they'd like to add."  
  
"Well unless Alex has come back from the dead and Scott dyed his hair green, I doubt it was either of them." Bobby said as he leaned against the wall.   
  
Sam nodded. "I got a look at 'em. Didn't look like anyone I know."   
  
Kitty rubbed the back of her neck. "Ok, so we have mimicked powers and guys with crayon hair and.."   
  
"The flash of light." Ororo said softly but firmly. Everyone looked at her. "There was a flash of light just after one of them yelled out that they had the windrider. It was a blinding flash just like the one..." She couldn't say it.   
  
Jean squeezed her hand. "This isn't like what happened to Logan, 'Ro."   
  
"She be right chere, tis not like what happen with Wolverine. Different bad guy, and besides, no Cyke to blow thin's up with his bad aim."  
  
Everyone looked at Remy but the only one with a disappointed face was the Professor. Remy returned the Professor's gaze but no one said a word. The Professor knew that everyone blamed Scott for what happened. Even himself.   
  
The stillness in the room was finally broken by Kitty, who's head had just shot up from her lap top. "Ororo's right." Everyone turned their attention away from Remy and towards Kitty.   
  
"Kitten?"  
  
Kitty still couldn't look at her. "I remember seeing the flash of light on the video I was watching. The blackbird recorded all of it and I was trying to see if anything from that battle could be used to help us with the mutant attacks."  
  
"And?" Rogue asked.   
  
"And it was the same kinda flash. Same color and intensity.. And a sound.. I didn't catch it at first and the second time I heard it I couldn't tell what it was, but I heard the same sound in the parking lot."  
  
Ororo gripped Jean's hand harder. She was hearing her worst nightmare come to life.   
  
"So you think that the two incidents are connected?" Jean asked as she placed her free hand on Ororo's knee. She could feel her lover's fear, sadness, and anger over their link. They were the same feelings she was having.   
  
Kitty shrugged. "Not sure but I'll find out." She closed her lap top and stood up. She looked at the Professor for a moment and waited until he nodded before leaving.   
  
The Professor then dismissed everyone else but Remy, Rogue, and Bobby.   
  
Out in the hall Ororo watched as Kitty phased though the floor to get to the control room faster. "She wouldn't even look at me. Is she that angry with me?"   
  
Jean looked stunned. "Why would she be angry with you?"   
  
Ororo turned and looked at Jean as if she should know. "Because I was unable to protect my own child."   
  
"Oh Ororo." Jean wrapped her arms around her lover. "This isn't your fault. You tried to get Lexie to safety."  
  
Ororo hugged back and buried her face into Jean's long red hair. "But they were after me and.. I could have done more."   
  
"That's how Kitty feels. She's blaming herself as much as we all are."   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
Alexandria, Logan, and Elizabeth sat inside one of the tents. The smell told Alexandria that it was her father's. "Why are you guys living in this camp?"   
  
"Safest place to be. Can't be detected." Logan said as he pulled a cigar out of his pocket. He couldn't take his eyes off his daughter.   
  
Alexandria smiled at him. "What?"   
  
"Nothin' Darlin'. Just your as beautiful as your mother. Always hoped you'd look like her."   
  
"She says I act a lot like you though."   
  
Logan smiled broadly.   
  
Elizabeth was glad to see a smile on Logan's face. They'd been trapped in this reality for ten years and never once had she seen her old friend smile. "Well I do believe I was trying to explain something to you before your father made his oh so typical entrance."  
  
"What was you 'splain' to my little girl, Betts?" Logan ask as his smile faded away.   
  
Elizabeth looked at him. "They all think we're dead Logan."   
  
"No surprise there. We've been gone for a long time. They either couldn't find us or they think we died on the spot. Told you they would darlin'"   
  
Alexandria nodded. "They think you died on the spot. They think that when Scott blew the guy up with his optics, that he blew you up too cause you were in those bubbles."   
  
Logan laughed out loud.   
  
"Um.. What's so funny?" Alexandria asked with an odd look on her face.  
  
Logan shook his head as he caught his breath. "First off, ol' one eye never even hit the guy. Second he was hurt but he didn't explode. The gate keeper pulled him though the portal when he seen him go down."   
  
Now Alexandria looked confused. "But you said Scott never.."   
  
"It wasn't Scott's blast that hurt him. It was your mother's." Elizabeth said. Alexandria looked more confused so Elizabeth went on. "You recall that I told you that the Collector was after your mother to help get something back that he'd lost." Alexandria nodded. "Well the thing he lost was your father. My guess would be that he wanted to use Ororo as bait. Not to mention the second reason he'd want her out of the way."  
  
"Why would he want her out of the way?" Alexandria asked.   
  
Alexandria looked over to Logan who was starting to pick up the story. "Your Momma hurt him bad in that battle. Seems the type o' energy Storm wields affects this guy real bad. Bad enough that he needed my healing factor to keep him going."   
  
"The Collector kept Logan weak enough to be unable to fight but strong enough to keep a steady supply of his plasma on tap."   
  
"That must be why he didn't care as much about his goons mistake once he figured out I was your daughter.. And why he wanted to know if I had a healing factor."  
  
"Do you?" Logan asked.   
  
Alexandria nodded. "Among other things." Logan and Elizabeth looked at each other and then at Alexandria, who blushed.   
  
"Well all this means is that we have to get her home sooner rather then later." Logan said as he stood up.   
  
Elizabeth stood with him. "And how do you plan on doing that? We've been trying to get home ever since we got you out of the mansion."   
  
"We just do it, darlin'. Not just about us anymore."   
  
Elizabeth nodded. 


	8. Parent and Children

The sun was starting to set and Alexandria could see the shadows from the fires beginning their nightly dances on the tent walls. She sat, her legs curled under her and her arms wrapped around herself, on her father's bed. He and Elizabeth had taken off somewhere, leaving her alone, but under the watchful eye of their friend Thomas. "Even in a different reality I get left behind." She huffed. "I mean they said that it was a blast from my mom that weakened this guy right? So why not take me along since I can dish up the same blast?" Alexandria growled a bit and the swung her legs off the bed. She looked around the tent and saw very little. She sighed before catching site of an old leather jacket. She walked over and picked it up from the chair it was hanging from and then slipped it on. It smelled like her father.   
  
Alexandria pulled the jacket tighter around herself and sank back onto the bed. Her mind was sill in a race to make sense of this. The whole being brought though a gate made in the very fabric of time and space was just a little out there, and she was convinced that no one would ever find her cause no one, not even her Uncle Bobby had that wild an imagination. Alexandria slipped her hands in the jacket pockets as she curled up in the center of the bed again. There was something in one. Slowly she pulled out an old leather wallet. The brown leather had yellowish marks around it's edges form being carried in the back pocket of her father's jeans for the goddess only knows how long.   
  
She ran her fingers over the soft martial and then carefully opened it. There in the very center of the tri-fold was a photograph of a tall woman with long white hair. In her arms was a small bundle of blankets that she held just the right way so that the tiny face within the blankets could be seen. Standing next to her was a short burly man with a small child with a white pony tail in his arms. Her parents looked so happy in the picture and she seemed to fit perfectly in her father's arms. Alexandria felt the stinging salt of budding tears in her eyes as she turned the picture over in it's sleeve, only to find a picture of her and her mother. She was sitting on her mother's lap as her mother sat on a log by a camp fire.   
  
The tears began to flow down her cheek like water in the stream they use to camp next to. As she traced the outline of her mother's face, Alexandria couldn't help but wonder if she'd ever see her again. "I'm sorry Momma." She whispered to the picture. "This is all my fault. I should have gotten into the van." Alexandria pulled the wallet and it's pictures to her chest and hugged it tightly.   
  
"Well get ya back kid." A rough voice called out from the tent's door. Alexandria looked up. Logan stood there with his arms crossed across his chest. "Won't keep ya from momma like that."   
  
"But you've been stuck here for ten years.. What makes you think you can get us back now?"   
  
Logan sat on the bed next to the girl and reached out for the wallet. "Like I told Betts. It's not just about us anymore.. Your here now."   
  
Alexandria gave him the wallet and watched as her father looked down at the pictures. He flipped back to the first one, the family picture, and looked at it a long time before flipped it closed and slipping it into his back pocket. Alexandria looked up at her father and not for the first time since finding out he was alive, she felt mad at him. "So you were perfectly willing to be stuck here until I showed up? Why didn't you try to come home harder!"   
  
Logan turned his head. He was a little surprised at the out burst but not at the emotion behind it. "We tried darlin'. Collector had me in bad shape for a long time though. Took Betts a while to get herself out alive and then even longer to get me out of there. Then once I was stronger we started to find a way back. Collector's the only one with a way to open the gate."   
  
"So you've spent the last ten years fighting him?" Alexandria asked. Her father nodded. There was a long moment of stillness between them before she spoke again. "We missed you, Me. Momma. Aunt Jean. Even Logan, though he really can't.." Alexandria stopped. She didn't wanna hurt his feelings.   
  
"Even though he don't remember me. It's ok, he was only an infant when we were taken." Logan reached down and pulled an ice cooler from the floor and opened it. He pulled out a beer and a can of soda. He handed the soda to Alexandria who gladly took it. There was another long moment between them. Neither knew what to say to the other despite the fact that they both had so many questions.   
  
Finally after what seemed forever Logan spoke up. "She happy, kid?"   
  
Alexandria looked up from her can of soda. "Who?"   
  
"Your momma."   
  
Alexandria nodded. "She is now. I mean well she was until.. Well I don't think is at the moment but yeah her life got better, happier if that's what your askin'" Logan nodded and Alexandria took that as a sign to go on. "It was real hard for her for a long time. She put on airs for our sake but I know.. I could hear her crying at night. Use to pretend to have bad dreams just so I could go to her with out her knowin' I knew she needed me."   
  
Logan couldn't help but smile since that sounded like something he'd do.   
  
"Aunt Jean was a lot of help. Don't think Momma would have pulled out as ok as she had if it wasn't for her."   
  
"Jeannie was always real good at bein' a friend." Logan said once he was sure Alexandria was done. Then he asked. "She got someone to love her?"   
  
Alexandria was surprised by this question. Though it did make sense. He just wanted to make sure she had someone to take care of her. "Yes." She said softly. The look on her father's face told her that despite everything, that hurt him.   
  
Logan finished his beer and opened another. He took a long drink and nearly downed the whole can. "Good," He said once he lowered the can from his lips. "I'm glad she has someone to make her happy. I just hope it's not Forge."   
  
Alexandria bit her lip to keep from laughing. "Don't worry it most certainly is not Forge."  
  
"Good. He was never good enough for her." They both nodded agreement to that. Then Logan asked, "What about Jean?"   
  
"It was really messed up for a long time after you left. It was like a brick had been removed and the whole wall came crashing down. Jean had it hard too, but she had other issues to deal with at the same time."   
  
Logan turned to look at Alexandria. He didn't like the tone in her voice or where this was going.   
  
"Everyone blamed Scott. Even blamed himself. They all thought, we all thought, it was his blast that helped kill you. Scott couldn't take it. He started drinking. He became even more stiff and more shut off from everyone.. Even Jean. It went on for a long time before he was ready to get it together. Problem was it wasn't Jean he went to for help, or to be with him."   
  
"He had an affair?"   
  
Alexandria nodded. "With Emma Frost."   
  
Logan choked on his beer. "Ol' one eye and frosty!?" Alexandria nodded. "God if those two ever had kids they'd be the stiffest ice poles in the world." Alexandria grinned sheepishly. Logan looked at her and shook his head. "No way."   
  
"Emma's due in December."   
  
Logan lost it. He laughed at the image and simply shook his head. After catching his breath he finished his second beer and put the cans in the trash. "So I take it that Jean and Scott are divorced."   
  
Alexandria nodded. "Eight years ago. Both remarried too."   
  
"Jeannie's married to someone else?"   
  
The look wasn't the same as it had been when he'd heard Ororo was with someone but it still looked a little hurt to Alexandria   
  
"To who?" Logan asked.   
  
Alexandria wasn't sure if telling him the truth was the right thing to do yet. How do you tell someone that his wife is married to another woman? A woman who he himself once had the hots for. Alexandria smiled as she thought. 'Man my family should be on Springer.' Finally she answered her father the best way she could. "To someone who makes her happy."   
  
Logan knew there was more to this story then what she was telling him, but the sounds out side the tent were telling him he'd have to wait to get the rest.   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
Night had fallen all around the Mansion. Kitty, Jean, and Hank were all looking over what information they had hoping to god and the goddess that they could find Alexandria and find her soon. The longer she was gone the colder the trail. Rouge, Gambit, and Iceman were all sent out by the Professor, for reasons none of the other's knew. Ororo was heading up to the loft to check on Rachel and Logan. Rachel was sleeping uneasily in her room. Ororo walked in and pulled the blanket up over the girl's arms and kissed her softly on the cheek. Then she went to Logan's room. He wasn't there. Ororo felt her heart sink.   
  
"Logan?" She searched the room. He wasn't there. "Logan!?" She was starting to panic. She looked in the living room, her room. Nate's old room. "Logan, where are you?!" Then she heard something coming from Alexandria's room. Her eyes began to white over as she approached the door. A gust of wind opened the door and she floated in.   
  
Logan looked up from his sister's pillow. His eyes were puffy. "Momma, I.. I know I should be in here.. I'm sorry!"   
  
Ororo lowered herself to the ground and as she walked over to the bed her eyes slowly went back to normal. "Logan, you scared me." She sat on the bed and gathered the boy into her arms. "I didn't know where you were."   
  
"I'm sorry. I heard you but I thought I'd get in trouble for being in Lexie's room"   
  
"Oh Logan." Ororo said softly as she hugged him. "It's alright. Your scared for your sister and you wanted to be close to her." Logan nodded and then buried his face into his mother's chest. "It's alright child. I won't tell Lexie you where in here if you don't."   
  
"Momma."   
  
"Yes Logan."   
  
Logan pulled away from his mother's chest and looked up at her. The fear in his eyes was over whelming. "Is Lexie ever coming back?"   
  
How was she going to answer that when she didn't know the answer? "We're trying very hard to find her Logan. Everyone's going to do everything they can to bring her back to us."   
  
"But Aunt Jean and Papa Charlie can't sense her. That means she's." He couldn't say it.   
  
Ororo brought her son close to her again. "No Logan it does not mean she's lost forever. It just means we have to look for her with out telepathy."  
  
"She's a pain, but she's my sister, and.. I miss her Momma.. I'm really scared." Logan buried his face into his mother's chest again and sobbed.   
  
"So am I." Came a voice from the doorway.   
  
Ororo looked up and saw Rachel standing there. She held open her free arm. "Come here child." Rachel rushed over and gratefully curled into her other mom's arms. "I want both of you to listen to me." Both children looked up at her. "Your sister will be alright and we'll bring her home. I promise you." Both Logan and Rachel nodded and then Ororo leaned back on the bed. She lied their holding her children and thinking about the one who wasn't there. The promise she'd made Logan and Rachel wasn't one she planned on falling though on. Somehow.. Someway... She'd find Alexandria.   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^***^*^*  
  
The tent flap opened and Elizabeth walked though with a smile. "The scouts have left. We should be able to start planning out next attack by morning."   
  
Logan stood up and nodded. "Good. 'Ro must be losing it bad back there. We need to get the kid back before New York is declared a disaster area."  
  
Elizabeth nodded. "Well they should be able to tell us more about the new mutants he has. Thomas said he brought back at least four new power sources."   
  
As Alexandria listened to her father and Elizabeth talking something her father had said earlier came back to her. "What did you mean before when you said power transfer was his business?"   
  
Both of the adults looked down at her and then Elizabeth sat next to her as Logan told her what they knew.   
  
"The Collector has the power to drain a mutant of their powers. Kinda like Rogue only ten fold. But he doesn't have to touch them. He surrounds them with that sliver bubble of his. Then once he has the powers the bubble pops and a sliver dust and the body of the now dead mutant fall to the grown. Then he stores this power and then transfers it to another mutant."  
  
"So the sliver dust everyone saw when they thought you died was his bubbles popping? And that's why one of the men who attacked us had powers like Havok's, cause he got Havok." Alexandria asked.   
  
Elizabeth nodded. "When your mother hit him with the lightening it broke our bubbles. But we were both so weak. Collector had his men grab us while the gate keeper helped him though the gate. And yes that is why Mase has Alex's powers. And there are others that work for him that have the powers from the other mutants that were killed from our reality. There's a man here in camp with Warren's powers. Some have Juggernaut's strength. Quicksliver's speed. And others."   
  
"But what about the other one. He shot optic beams."   
  
Elizabeth looked over at Logan and then back at Alexandria. "Optic beams? Like Scott's?" Alexandria nodded her head. "That ones new. He must have.."   
  
Logan nodded then changed the subject. "It's gettin' late darlin' I think it's best the kid gets some sleep. Can she stay with you?"   
  
"Of course Logan."   
  
Alexandria looked confused. She had assumed she'd be staying with her father. "No.. I wanna stay with you."   
  
Logan shook his head. "Not a good idea, kid. Trust me."   
  
"It's alright luv, my tent is right across from here. You'll still be close to your dad. He isn't going anywhere."   
  
Alexandria looked at her father who didn't seem as if he were going to change his mind so she stood up and started to head for the tent flap.   
  
"Night kid."   
  
Alexandria stopped, turned around, and rushed over to her father. She hugged him and then slipped out the door with Elizabeth. 


	9. Time to Plan

***Disclaimer*** Read the earlier chapters.   
  
***Author's Note*** Sorry this one took so long. Stupid homework.   
  
The camp was quite which made it easy for Alexandria to listen to the muffled noises coming from her father's tent. To anyone else they would have simply been moans of a bad dream or a restless sleep, but to someone who's hearing was slightly above normal and who knew that her father had suffered from night terrors before her birth, it was clear there was more going on in the tent across the way then just a bad dream.   
  
Having a master thief as a godfather who liked to pass on his skills had come in handy more then once in Alexandria's life, and as she crept out of bed and towards her father's tent she found herself very thankful that Remy had picked her to pass the skills onto. The moans became more clear the closer she got, and the more she knew these were not moans from a bad dream. At least not a dream alone. Alexandria shifted the winds to carry her scent away from herself so she would have a few extra moments before her father knew she was there, and then inched into the tent.   
  
Logan was laying on his cot, asleep but thrashing around. His claws were extended and making shreds out of the blanket that was covering him. Alexandria could see the muscles in his bare arms and chest as they twisted with spasms. This wasn't like the night terrors her mother said he use to have. No, her father was in pain. Real physical pain. But how could he be in pain like this? Wouldn't his healing factor be taking care of what ever it was that was hurting him? Alexandria stepped further into the tent. She pulled the jacket she wore over the nightshirt Elizabeth had given her to wear, tighter around herself and then once again changed the winds. Now the warm summer breeze blew her scent towards her father.   
  
"Thought I told you to stay with Betts." A muffed growl said as Alexandria stood watching her father slowly turn over to look at her.   
  
She nodded and moved closer. "You did, but I heard you."   
  
"Thought your hearing wasn't as keen as mine." Logan muttered as he sat up slowly.   
  
Alexandria could see in her father's face that he was trying not to let her see him hurting. "It's not, but it's better then most, besides I was trying to hear you." She walked over to him and sat next to him. The muscles in his arm were contacting and she reached out and began to rub out the painful knot. Logan sprang up from the cot like something had bit him. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make it worse."  
  
"Nothin' to make worse, darlin'" Logan watched as his daughter leaned back on the cot and looked at him with questioning eyes. Good lord did this kid look like her mother doing that, he thought to himself.   
  
Alexandria shook her head, her white hair dancing around her shoulders. "Your in pain. I can see it."   
  
Logan shook his head. "I'm fine darlin'"   
  
"Sure you are, and I'm about as convinced as Mom would be." Alexandria looked at her father and watched as he gave into another painful cramp. "I can help. You just have to tell me what's wrong." Alexandria could see that her father was about to protest so she got up and walked towards him. Her eyes whited over and her finger tips began to crackle with short blue sparks. She lightly touched her father's arm and the pain went away instantly.   
  
Logan stretched out his arm and flexed his fingers. "Haven't had that done in a while. Your mom use to do that for me after a hard work out in the danger room or after a big battle. Healin' factor's a useful thing but a lightenin' massage was always way better. Though it never worked that fast."  
  
"Hank says that I can pass my healing factor onto another person when I do that. Says that Logan's powers are heading towards being able to do that on a larger scale." Alexandria stepped way from her father and then sat back on the bed. "So is this why I had to stay with Aunt Betsy?"  
  
"Yep." Logan pulled a chair from the corner of the tent and turned it around before sitting in it backwards. "Can't control the spasms. Didn't wanna hurt'cha."   
  
Alexandria nodded. "You were dreaming too." Logan nodded. "Mom told me that you use to have night terrors, but they slowed down after you were married and stopped after I was born. What happened to bring them back?"   
  
"Stuff. It's nothing you need to worry about."   
  
"Ok fine. I get it. I forgot, your not the talkative type. That's fine, I'll just wait and let Mom find out when we get back, or better yet. I'll ask Aunt Betsy." Alexandria stood and headed for the tent flap. She paused at the opening, but when her father didn't say anything she walked out. She kicked a pebble and huffed as she made her way back to Elizabeth's tent. Why wouldn't he tell her what had happened? As she crawled back onto the cot Elizabeth had gotten for her, Alexandria's mind began to wander. Slowly as sleep finally began to take her she started to piece things together, but she would find out for sure when she asked Elizabeth in the morning.   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^  
  
"Ororo." Jean's voice was soft as she walked up behind her lover, who stood out on the small balcony out side their bedroom window. "Ororo, you need to get some rest. It's nearly three in the morning." Jean shivered a little as a cold wind brushed though her long red hair. "Are we going to have to make you sleep like we did, Kitty?"   
  
Ororo shook her head before leaning back against the shorter woman. She hurt to much to sleep. Her daughter was out there somewhere with someone who could hurt her, or worse, and she'd allowed it to happen. She'd been standing on the balcony for hours talking to the Goddess, asking her to bring Alexandria home safe, but the Goddess had no reply for her this night. "I can not sleep, Jean, you go ahead and go back to bed. I know how tired you are my love."   
  
Jean sighed as she turned the tall African woman around to face her. "I know your hurting, Ororo. I know your blaming yourself." Jean tapped the side of her head and smiled weakly. "Even if we weren't linked I'd know. But love, you can't punish yourself this way. It's not going to do you, or Alexandria, any good. How are you going to help get her back if you don't have the energy to summon even weakest of winds?"   
  
Ororo sighed and shook her head. "Jean, you just don't understand.. Your children are safe." As soon as she said it, Ororo regretted it. The hurt on Jean's face made Ororo turn away from her. "I'm sorry, Jean. I didn't mean to say she wasn't.. That you don't love her as if she were your own."   
  
"I know, and I do, Ororo. Alexandria in my heart is as much my daughter as Rachel is, just as Rachel is to you." Jean once again turned her lover to face her and then wrapped her arms around the windrider, holding her close. "This isn't your fault, Ororo.   
  
Ororo buried her face into her wife's long red hair. She hurt and Jean's arms were the only thing that could comfort her. "What would I do with out you my love?"   
  
"You'll never have to find out, 'Ro. I promise."   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
"It has something to do with the Collector, doesn't it." Alexandria said as she and Elizabeth sat next to the fire waiting for breakfast. "Something he did triggered the nightmares and the pain."   
  
Elizabeth nodded. "The procedure and his captivity reminded him to much of what happened with weapon x.. The procedure also left him with the muscle spasms."   
  
Alexandria nodded. That's what she had thought last night. "So how come he wouldn't just tell me that?"   
  
Logan growled from behind them. "Cause it was my business. Thanks a lot there Betts."  
  
Elizabeth waved him off as he kneeled next to the fire. "She's your daughter, Logan, and she was worried and scared for you."   
  
Alexandria looked oddly at Elizabeth for a brief moment before she remembered that she was a telepath. She was scared. She'd just found her dad and she was afraid that she'd lose him again. She tried not to think about it., or about whether or not she'd ever get home. In fact she tried not to think about much at all. Thinking about what was going on with her just made her jumpy and emotional. She was trying to do what her grandfather had said to do. To remain focused until she was safely back in the mansion.   
  
Alexandria looked up at the sound of someone coming. It was Thomas and another man she didn't know. As they joined them around the fire she gave Thomas a sheepish grin. She still hadn't apologized for blowing him into a tree. The sliver haired man just smiled back at her with an understanding wink before he started talking to Logan and Elizabeth.   
  
"There's something going on at the mansion. The collector sent his gatekeeper and another mutant into the other realm." He began. Logan growled. Elizabeth shook her head. Alexandria just looked confused. "Word is that he sent them after another power. They were to bring back a telepath but they failed. Needless to say the collector was not happy."   
  
Elizabeth looked at Thomas oddly. "Since when does he send out for his power sources. He normally goes to get them himself."   
  
Thomas nodded and then looked over at the man who was warming his hands by the fire. The man was dressed unlike any other in the camp. His clothes looked like a uniform to her. She watched the man closely. He was rather handsome. Tall, dark hair and eyes, he reminded her a little of her Uncle Remy.   
  
"The old man can't cross over. He's took weak." The man said in a voice that sent chills up Alexandria's spine. "He became to dependant on Logan's plasma. With out it he grows weaker."   
  
Logan shook his head. "This ain't good. He knows that the kid has the healing factor too. He'll be wantin' one of us and he'll be figurein' she's the weaker of the two of us."   
  
"Hey!" Alexandria protested. Logan just flashed her a smile while Elizabeth put her hand on her knee. Alexandria narrowed her eyes and continued to listen. .  
  
The adults continued to talk about the condition of the collector and then finally they got back to talking about the failed attempt to grab a telepath. "Guess he's looking for a powerful telepath that'll be able to locate us. His goons messed up and came back empty handed and well stomped." Thomas chuckled a little bit. "One went on and on about fire works and some woman screaming at him about attacking on hollowed ground. They attacked the pair in another mall."   
  
Alexandria and Logan looked up and then at each other at the same time. They both smiled and then said. "Jubilee."   
  
"That means the telepath they were after was Emma." Alexandria said. "Jubes has been working for her full time at the Massachusetts Academy since she got pregnant."  
  
"Emma would be able to get past the PSY field we have around the campsite, Logan." Elizabeth said somberly. Logan just growled in response.   
  
Alexandria watched as her father lit a cigar in the camp fire and then stood. He walked over to the edge of the clearing and stood there. She looked at Elizabeth but she too looked to be lost in thought. "Well then." Alexandria said as she too stood up. She looked over at her father and then back at the others. "It sounds like we gotta put a cork in this guy before he has a chance to find this camp or bring any more people over from our reality. Besides, I need to get home. So what's the plan?"   
  
Logan walked back over to the group and put his arm around his daughter's shoulder. "All ready workin' it out up here, darlin'" Logan tapped the side of his head with a smile.   
  
"Well I hope your including me in your planning cause don't you dare think your doing anything with out me." Alexandria told him.   
  
Logan smiled. "Won't dream of it, darlin'. We're going to need those powers of yours if this is going to work."   
  
"What are you thinking, Logan?"   
  
"I'm thinking it's about damn time these people are safe from that ass and it's long past time for us to go home, Betts." 


	10. The Calm Before the Storm

The plan was set and now all they had to do was wait for the right moment to strike. It would be fast and hard, the attack. It would free the people of this reality from a mad man and it would get others back to where they belonged. There was a lot riding on this plan working and a lot on Alexandria. Which scared her to death. She sat alone near a small brook and watched as the water washed away dirt from the smooth polished rocks. She'd never been on a real mission, or faced any real danger. The closest she'd ever come to something dangerous was eating the last of her Uncle Bobby's lucky charms or getting caught by her mother when she was up to something. Even her time in the danger room was rather low level. And now here she sat waiting for word from her father that it was time to go home. Would she be able to do what she had to do? She still didn't have the greatest control over her gifts. What if it came time to blast the guy and instead of lightening she panicked and called up a snowstorm.   
  
Alexandria had many times watched her mother in the garden or on the dock or on the balcony out side her and Jean's room, just standing there. She asked her once why she always did that before a mission and her mother had told her that it was her time to prepare herself. It was time to think, to feel, to listen. Alexandria never understood what her mother had meant by all that until now. Because now it was her turn to prepare. She was thinking about what she had to do. She was feeling fear and anticipation. She was listening to the voices of her mother, and her Aunt Jean, and her grandfather as they encouraged her and told her she could do what she set her mind to. She listened to their voices as she they told her they loved her. She listened to the sound of twigs being broken in the trees behind her.   
  
"You can come out. I know your back there." She called out as she stared out at the water.   
  
The tall handsome man she had seen that morning with Thomas came out of the tree line. "I didn't mean to intrude, Alexandria. I didn't know anyone else would be down here."  
  
Alexandria turned to look at the young man. "Not a problem." She replied, as she looked him up and down. He was handsome. He was tall, she would guess around six foot even. His hair was short and the color of cocoa. His eyes were bright and reminded her of melted chocolate. His body was lean but she could trace the out line of his muscular chest and arms threw his shirt. Alexandria swallowed hard as she brought her gaze back up to meet his. It wasn't until she looked into his face and eyes that she realized two things. One, he was around her age, and two, he had been checking her out while she'd been checking him out. "And please call me Lexie. Only my mother and grandfather call me Alexandria even when I'm not in trouble."   
  
The young man nodded as he came closer to her. "Alright. Lexie."   
  
He continued to look at her and Alexandria could feel a slight blush coloring her tanned cheeks. "What?"   
  
The young man smiled. "You must look like your mother cause your a lot better looking then the wolverine."   
  
"I do favor my mother. She's a very beautiful woman. I'll be lucky if I turn out half as pretty as she is." Alexandria smiled as she thought of her mother. The young man smiled back at her and she blushed a little more. He sat down on a rock a few feet from her and she couldn't help but watch as he pulled his tight shirt away from the skin on his chest. They sat there a little while before Alexandria spoke up again. "You know. You have an unfair advantage over me here."   
  
The young man looked at her oddly. "I do?"   
  
Alexandria nodded. "You know my name but I don't have a clue what to call you."   
  
"Erik." The young man said with a smile.   
  
"Erik?" Alexandria thought about what Elizabeth had told her and she began to look at the young man a little closer.   
  
"What?" He asked.   
  
"My aunt told me that everyone in my reality has or had a counter part in this one." The young man nodded. "The only Erik I know is an old man. What's your last name?"   
  
Erik laughed. "Don't worry. I'm not Magneto. Though I am named for him." Alexandria looked surprised at that bit of news so Eric went on. "You see the man you know as Magneto wasn't the same man my mother knew as Erik Lehnsherr. He was a kind man who gave his life to protect my mother while she was pregnant with me. So when I was born she named me after him."  
  
"Save her from who?" Alexandria was almost afraid of the answer. She could see a hurt and anger in his eyes that told her who it had been.   
  
"The collector tried to keep her a prisoner in his mansion but my mother got away from him. She went to Erik who took her in and protected her."   
  
Alexandria watched Erik and reached out to comfort him but then quickly recoiled her hand. "What happened to her?"   
  
"The collector found us. He brought us back to his mansion and we were kept there. He tried to give her the powers he had stolen but she didn't want them. She fought the process and it killed her."   
  
This time Alexandria's hand did reach out and rest on his knee. "Do you have any powers?"   
  
Erik nodded. "I was born with them."   
  
"What are they?"   
  
There was more rustling in the trees and Alexandria looked up just in time to see her father standing there. Logan looked at his daughter as she sat near Erik with her hand on his knee and he growled.   
  
"Time to get a move on. Lexie go find Betts." Logan moved closer to them and they both stood.   
  
Alexandria looked at her father and then at Erik. She wasn't sure what to make of the look on her father's face but she didn't like it. Logan growled again and Lexie decided she'd figure it out later. She nodded and then with one last look at Erik headed off to find Elizabeth.   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
Everyone one was gathering in Charles' study. He'd called them all with the message of new news that could help them find Alexandria and he was sure he'd never seen them assemble so fast before.   
  
"What's this about, Charles?" Ororo asked as she sat on one of the leather sofas next to Jean."   
  
Charles sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of him. "There was another attack. This one much like the one on all of you. The one that took Alexandria. Only this one failed."   
  
"Where? On who?" Jean asked.   
  
Charles started to explain but was quickly cut off by his study door swinging wide open. Everyone smiled as they watched the first woman enter.   
  
"I would have been here sooner but Frosty here just had to go the mall to get more baby stuff." Jubilee smiled as she stepped out of the way to allow a very pregnant Emma Frost to enter the room as well. "Which as it turns out was a good thing for once."  
  
Emma sighed. "Oh please Jubilation. You act as if you didn't want to go shopping."   
  
Bobby shook his head as the two entered and then leaned over to Hank and Remy and whispered. "Ya know. I still swear those to are more then just friends."   
  
Jean gave Bobby a warning look before turning to the pair who'd just entered the room. She and Emma had come to terms a long time ago and no longer loathed the woman. Well, at least not any more then she had before she slept with Scott. "What's going on?"   
  
"Yesterday Jubilation and I were attacked at the mall and I believe it was by the same men who took Alexandria. The detail of the two attacks match to closely."   
  
Jubilee nodded. "Can you believe it! Not only did these scums have the never to take one of the RoLo pups but they did it at a mall! Then they attacked us.. At the mall! Didn't anyone ever tell them that the mall is a sacred place?"   
  
"Does this mean you have new information?" Ororo asked after smiling a little at Jubilee despite herself.   
  
"Frosty was able to see past the bright light. Felt something too." Jubilee said as she plopped herself down in between Jean and Ororo.   
  
Again Bobby leaned over to the boys and whispered. "Ya know if it's a girl they could name it Frosty Summers."   
  
This time Jubilee gave them the look. "Nope they vetoed that one a month ago."   
  
Emma shook her head at the 'children's' section of the room and then turned her attention back to the others. "The flash of light comes from the opening and closing of some kind of gateway. I was able to watch the men who attacked us go though it while I was in my diamond form."   
  
"So Alexandria could be.. Where? Another time line.. Another planet.. Another anything." Ororo said as she sighed heavily.   
  
Jubilee reached down and took the older woman's hand. "Yeah but see we think they were after Frosty for a reason. She felt their need for a telepath. A really bad need which means they're likely to try again. So the way we see it since we happen to have two telepaths to choose from now we could set them up."   
  
Ororo shook her head. "Jean isn't bait. I could never ask her or Emma to do that. Emma's with child for goddess sake."   
  
Emma and Jean shared a brief look before Jean turned to her lover. "Well my love.. I guess it's a good thing you don't have to ask." Jean smiled brightly at her wife before turning back to Emma. "So Frosty. Up for a little shopping?" 


	11. The Storm

The tunnels under the mansion were dark, dank, and musty. Alexandria swore to herself that as soon as she got home she was taking a long hot bath. She followed Erik, Thomas, her father, and Elizabeth as they made their was to the collector's main chamber. It was in this chamber that he stored stolen powers, and lunched his gateways. It was this chamber that Alexandria had first seen when she arrived just before passing out. It had been heavily guarded and something told her it wasn't exactly sitting out in the middle of the house. She wondered how Erik was so sure he could get them in undetected, and how he knew where he was going.   
  
*Are we sure we can trust him?* She asked Elizabeth telepathically as they made their was though a long hallway that seemed to be going up hill.   
  
Elizabeth nodded. *Logan does and that's all that matters.*  
  
*But how does he know about these tunnels and how to get into the chamber and how to defeat the collector?*  
  
Erik turned around and looked at Alexandria as the group stopped. "I know these tunnels, the chamber, and the collector because I have spent my whole life here. And no not as his prisoner. As his son."   
  
Alexandria's mouth opened in shock. He had heard her conversation with Elizabeth, her had heard her thoughts. "Your a telepath." It was more a statement then a question, but Erik nodded anyway. "Your his son?" It took a lot for Alexandria not to raise her voice above the whispers they were all using.   
  
"I did not say I was his son. I said I lived here as his son." And with that Erik turned to the others and they went over the plan one last time.   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
The Salem center mall was crawling with X-Men. They were staked out in groups of two and three and they were all positioned so that Emma and Jean were watched at all times. Ororo didn't think putting her wife's life on the line like this was a good idea. She'd already lost to much and losing Jean would only drive her over her already crumbling edge. But Jean would not be talked out of it. Ororo watched as Jean and Emma sat at the Cinnabun for a moment longer and then turned to the young brown haired woman standing next to her. Kitty was tense and hadn't once looked at Ororo since all this happened.   
  
Ororo gave a faint smile to Jubilee who nodded and then gave her and Kitty some room. Then she stepped closer to her other surrogate child. "I'm sorry Kitten, I should have been more careful with you and the children."   
  
Kitty turned and looked at Ororo with a confused look on her young face. "You didn't do anything wrong, Ororo. You protected them by ordering me to get them to safety. I'm the one who messed up. I'm the reason Lexie is gone."  
  
"I'm her mother, Kitten, I should have done more." Ororo reached out and tucked a strand of long brown hair behind one of Kitty's ears. "It's my job to protect you all. That's what.."   
  
Kitty reached up and took Ororo's hand and smiled at her. "That's what moms do and that's what you did. You ordered me to get them to safety and then you started to get Sam and Bobby and Jean into an offensive position. You where doing what you do best, Ororo. You were leading your team to protect those you love."   
  
"And you did just as I had asked. You got Rachel and Logan into the van." Ororo could see that Kitty was about to protest and placed a long slender finger on the younger woman's lips. "Alexandria would not allow you to pull her into the van. She wouldn't allow me to either. She's a very stubborn child."   
  
Jubilee laughed as she walked back over to Ororo and Kitty. "Like Wolive like cub." She smiled at the two women when they turned to look at her. "Bout time you two stopped blaming yourselves. This mess any no one's fault but the idiot who thought he could take on our family."   
  
Ororo and Kitty smiled at Jubilee and then at each other.   
  
"Looks like Jean and Emma are on the move. Come along girls. I have a feeling something's about to happen."   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
"I didn't mean to upset him." Alexandria said as she crouched between her father and Elizabeth. The hurt look on Erik's face as he lead the others to their waiting positions made Alexandria feel bad. Her mother was right, as always, she really did need to learn to think before speaking. Though with him listening in on her thoughts that wouldn't have done any good either. Someone should teach him not to eaves drop.   
  
Elizabeth looked at Logan and then down at Alexandria. She put her hand on the girl's shoulder and nodded her head. "He knows you didn't mean to be hurtful, Luv, it's just that," Elizabeth paused and got a sad look in her eyes. "Erik's mother and Magneto weren't the first people in Erik's life to be killed by this monster."   
  
Suddenly something clicked. "His father." Elizabeth nodded. "What happened?"   
  
"He wanted his powers, but Erik's father was too strong for him. So since he couldn't have his powers he had him killed instead." Logan piped in before turning to face his daughter. "The rest you'll have to ask him later. It's time to move."   
  
Alexandria nodded and began to follow her father.   
  
*You alright, luv?* Elizabeth asked.   
  
Alexandria nodded but replied. *I'm scared.* An image appeared in her mind. It was her mother waiting for her with open arms. Alexandria looked over at Elizabeth but then suddenly another voice appeared in her head. *Just keep in mind on your goal. To go home.* It was Erik. Alexandria relaxed and prepared herself to do what needed to be done.   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
The chamber of the collector was a buzz of activity. Erik walked past the guards, threw them the snarl he'd learned from Wolverine and then walked up to the collector who was standing behind a control panel.   
  
"Ahh Erik my boy." The Collector said without turning around. "Just in time. We've finally had a bit of luck. The scouts reported two telepaths. I've sent the Gatekeeper and his brother to retrieve them."  
  
Erik stood there and watched the area in which the gatekeeper's gate always opened. "Why do you want telepaths so badly Father?"   
  
The Collector laughed. "To make up for your short comings of course my dear boy. With the add power of these two to your own natural gifts you'll have no problems finding the prey I have hunted for, for so long."   
  
"You mean the Wolverine?"   
  
"And the child that those fools brought me by mistake. That little wench wields the same pure power that her mother used to do this." The collector lifted up the shirt of his uniform to reveal burnt and scared flesh.   
  
Erik tried not to smile at the image but waited until the man before him had pulled his shirt back down. "I have a surprise for you father."   
  
The collector laughed again. It was a sick sound that made everyone around him shiver. "Are you trying to make up for being as worthless as the man who spawned you, Erik?"   
  
Snikt! "No he's bein' the man his father would have wanted him to be, Bub!"   
  
The collector turned and looked dead at Wolverine with his claws out, ready to attack. He saw Elizabeth with her physic knives. He saw his own man servant, Thomas with them, his eyes glowing red from the power transfer from this realties Scott Summers. He saw the child with the long white hair, and standing next to her with his hand near his temples, he saw Erik.   
  
Wolverine took the chance that Erik had given him by forcing the Collector to look at him and lunged towards him. There was a roar of pain from the man as Wolverine's claws sank into flesh. Elizabeth and Thomas kept themselves busy fighting off the attacking guards, and Erik pulled Alexandria off to the side.   
  
"The Gatekeeper isn't here." He told her just before sending a guard to his knees clutching his head. "He's in your reality. If they open the gate and see a battle here they'll close it again. You can keep it open."   
  
Alexandria's heart had suck to her knees when she'd heard the gatekeeper wasn't there. "How?" She asked as her eyes whited over and strong wind blew a guard off Elizabeth.   
  
"Your lightening."   
  
"But I'm not strong enough to use it against the collector and to keep a dimensional gate open!"  
  
Erik looked Alexandria in the eyes . His voice was firm and kinda. His hands planted firmly on her shoulders. "You have the strength of your parents, all you have to do is trust in yourself as much as you trust in them."   
  
Alexandria nodded.   
  
Clouds began to form outside. The winds began to pick up. The skies became dark. The air snapped and popped in anticipation. The daughter of a Goddess commanded them and they obeyed.   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
Clouds began to form outside. The winds began to pick up. The skies became dark. The air snapped and popped in anticipation. Their Goddess commanded them and they obeyed.   
  
The X-Men had followed Emma and Jean out into the furthest parking lot away from the mall they could find. They waited. They didn't have to wait long. They attack had come quickly and it came on strong but they had been ready for it.   
  
Emma had changed into her diamond form so she could see them open the portal. Gambit was throwing cards, while Jubilee threw sparks at the two men who were backing up away from them and towards Jean who picked them up off the ground and held him motionless in the air. Bobby covered their eyes in ice, while Storm let lose with all her fury. She approached the men, her hands crackling electric blue.   
  
"Where is my daughter?" She demanded as she threw lightening deathly close to them. The men only cursed her. "I asked you!" She threw more lightening at them, this time hitting them. The men twitched. "Where is my daughter!?" Again the men cursed her. The blots she sent though them this time knocked them from Jean's hold. The men hit the ground. Rogue and Kitty approached them. They scampered back and then before anyone could move they were in the air. Cannonball was hot on the heels when the Gatekeeper waved his hand.   
  
Just as they had planned.   
  
"It's opening!" Emma shouted.   
  
The flash of light came but thanks to Hank's special contacts no one was blinded. The gateway opened and the sounds of a fight came though it like a radio signal, as did something else.   
  
"I can feel her!" Jean shouted over to Ororo. "'Ro, I can sense Alexandria!"   
  
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*  
  
"Jeanie?" Alexandria asked as she started at the foggy white swirling vortex in the corner. Then a scream made her turn back to the battle. The Collector had Elizabeth. Alexandria felt something inside her she couldn't explain. The skies out side were midnight black and then suddenly they lit up in a blinding flash of light. The roof above them came down on the remaining guards as a blot of lightening like nothing she'd ever created before obeyed the wave of Alexandria's hand. It crashed into the Collector who howled and released Elizabeth.   
  
"Lexie!" Erik yelled. "The gateway is closing!"   
  
Alexandria looked over and watched as the circle of light started to get smaller. The sky crackled. She held up her hand. Lightening filling the room and made contact with the gateway.   
  
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"It's closing!" Emma yelled. "They're closing it!"   
  
Storm looked over and saw the only way to her daughter closing her off from her. Something in side her bubbled as she rose into the air. "Elements be with me." The air sizzled around her as the sky lit up behind her. The lightening passed though her and made contact with the closing vortex.   
  
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There was a blinding flash of light.   
  
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	12. The Real Power

The barrier between dimensions, between realities had been ripped open when the two bolts of lightening connected in the middle of it. The gateway began to open again. It grew and grew as the weather Goddess and her daughter connected to each other though their powers. It grew until the two plans of reality were face to face with each other. Finally Erik pushed Alexandria to the floor and Jean pulled Ororo to the ground. The gateway remained open.   
  
"Alexandria!" Storm shouted as looked through the opening. Her hands were trembling and her heart pounding hard in her chest. She ran towards the gateway only to have the Gatekeeper blast her away from it.   
  
"You shouldn't have done that." Kitty said as her hand phased though the man's body form behind. The Gatekeeper sank to his knees clutching his chest.   
  
Alexandria looked up and saw her family standing on the other side of the gateway. "Momma?" She hurried to her knees as best she could. The act of opening the gate and holding onto her power for so long had weakened her.  
  
Jean stepped though the gateway and rushed over to Alexandria, pushing Erik out of the way. "Lexie!" She wrapped her arms around the girl.   
  
"It's ok. He's a friend." Alexandria said as she fell into her other mother's arms. "Jeanie.. You won't believe who's here!"   
  
Ororo staggered to her feet and started over towards Jean and Alexandria but stopped cold at a familiar sound. It was a roar, an angry, hurt, roar of a man. She began to walk towards the gateway again after shaking herself back from her memories.   
  
"I will not be defeated!" The collector rose from the rubble. His body covered in deep cuts, all of them three slashes in a row. His skin smoldered from Alexandria's attack. He fixed his gaze on the girl as he rose his hands.   
  
Alexandria pushed Jean out of the way and stepped up, her eyes whiting over once again. "You want me? Come get me, Bud!" She raised her fists to her side, they flashed with pure energy. She knew what she had to do. "May the elements give me strength."   
  
Storm watched as the man who'd killed her husband aimed at her daughter. Her rage and the winds carried her into the air. She charged at him. The collector turned to see her heading for him and smiled evilly. He then turned and aimed his power at her. Long sliver snakes of energy slithered from his finger tips towards her.   
  
"Momma! No!" Alexandria lifted up into the air and hurled herself in front of the collectors attack. The sliver bubble formed around her and she could feel it sucking at her power. She feel to her knees in the bubble as she heard her mother's horrified scream. She tried to tell her it was ok, it was part of the plan, but she couldn't find the strength to form the words.   
  
"Come on Lexie!" Erik yelled as he stood by Jean. "You can do it! I know you can!" He looked at the girl with the beautiful white hair and the sparkling blue eyes. Their gazes connected for a moment. He nodded when he saw Alexandria nod.   
  
Jean watched the inter play between the two and then pushed Erik against a wall. She pinned him there telekinetically and placed her arm against his throat for good measure. "What is she doing!?"   
  
"It's all part of the plan, Jean."   
  
Jean spun around at the sound of the voice. Her knees almost gave out on her when she saw a battered Elizabeth staggering towards her. "B..B...Betsy?" She ran over and helped the woman to the ground before she could fall.   
  
Elizabeth smiled up at her old friend. "It's good to see you, Luv."   
  
"But.. But your." Jean was at a lost for words.   
  
"Tell Storm to attack only when Alexandria is ready." Elizabeth said with some difficulty.   
  
Jean nodded and then called out for Cannonball to come get Elizabeth and get her back to the mini jet, where Hank was waiting, just in case. Then she went back over to Erik who was still pinned against the wall. The look in her eyes told him to start explaining and so he told her almost everything.   
  
Storm flew up to the bubble her daughter was in. "Alexandria!" She watched as daughter remained on her hands and knees. Her long white hair hanging around her face like a curtain. Then she heard that laugh. The same laugh everyone had heard before Logan had died. Storm turned and looked at the collector. "Release my daughter and perhaps I will kill you quickly."   
  
"I'm not scared of you weather witch! I killed your husband, I'll kill your child, then I'll kill you and I will enjoy.." The collector paused. There was something wrong. He was no longer feeding off the power of the child. He turned to look at the bubble that was connected to him though his sliver tethers.   
  
A blue sparkle of pure power radiated from all around Alexandria in a strange glow. She could feel her healing factor and the electricity from the lighting merging. She heard her mother call out her name and she raised her eyes to look at her. She was just outside the bubble. She drew more strength from her mother's presence then anything else.   
  
Alexandria's head snapped up, her long white hair flipping behind her. She staggered to her knees and then to her feet. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it was a hazard to your health to tick off a Goddess? Or her daughter?" Alexandria reached out and places her hands on the bubble's walls. She then let every ounce of power she had pass from her to the bubble. The lightening engulfed the bubble and traveled down the tethers to the collector.   
  
"Have her attack now!" Erik yelled at Jean.   
  
Jean sent the message onto Storm who raised her arms high in the air and sent all the power of the elements crashing into the collector.   
  
The collector roared and howled in pain. His flesh burned, his insides boiled. He fell to his knees but still kept hold on the bubble. He tried to pull more power. Alexandria was weakening he only had to hold out a little longer. He tried to capture Storm but she flew around him, hurling lightening down on him unmercifully. He couldn't hold on to the bubble much longer so he began to raise it high into the air.   
  
"One of you will die." He chocked out.   
  
Storm watched as Jean joined her in the air. She then saw Rogue out of the corner of her eye heading up towards Alexandria who was back on her knees.   
  
"Not this time. Not ever again."   
  
Storm sent another bolt of lightening through the collector. The bubble broke in a flash of lightening and a roar of thunder. Alexandria screamed as she felt the bubble bust around her. Jean held her in the air until Rogue grabbed her. The collector howled in defeat and then slumped to the floor. Erik ran over to man who'd killing his family. He rolled him over, checked his pulse. He looked up at the two women who flew above him. Storm had been ready to toast him but Jean had stopped her.   
  
"He's not going to hurt anyone ever again." Erik told them. He was dead.   
  
Rogue knelt on the ground holding Alexandria who was near unconsciousness. She brushed the girl's hair from her face as she told Gambit to go get Hank. Alexandria looked up at her aunt and muttered something Rogue couldn't make out. "Shh Sug. Your safe now."   
  
Jean and Storm landed in front of them and Storm quickly took her child into her arms. She cradled her daughter close to her and fought back the tears in her eyes. "It's alright baby. Momma's here now."   
  
Alexandria looked up into her mother's face and at the tears in her eyes. "Did we get him?" When her mother nodded and hugged her tight Alexandria took a strained breath. She looked around and saw her family standing there, she saw Erik too but not Elizabeth or her father. Panic flashed in her eyes.   
  
"Where are they?" She tried in vain to get up but she was to weak and her mother wasn't letting go. "Where are they?!"   
  
Jean knelt beside her and took her hand. "Elizabeth is with Hank, Lexie." Storm's head snapped up. "If that is really her that is."   
  
"It is indeed our Ms. Braddock." Hank said as he came closer. He crouched down and started to examine Alexandria with a big fuzzy blue smile. "Rogue dear, do you think you could move some of that rubble. According to Betsy there's someone under there we might wanna get out."   
  
Storm looked from Jean, to Hank, to Rogue, and then down at Alexandria.   
  
Alexandria took another ragged breath and whispered, "Daddy" before passing out.   
  
Hank took the child from Storm and put her on a stretcher that Bobby and Gambit were holding. "She's going to be fine, Ororo."   
  
Storm stood there and watched as Hank and the others took her daughter towards the mini jet. Then she looked at Jean. Jean walked over and wrapped her arms around her wife who collapsed into them.   
  
"I'll be goddamned!"   
  
Jean and Storm looked at each other and then ran over to were they heard Rogue's scream. There laying in the rubble was Logan. Storm dropped to her knees beside him. "Logan?" She said softly.   
  
Logan's eyes fluttered open and for a moment he thought he was dead. He stared up at the beautiful face staring down at him. He drank in the sound of her voice. He reached up and touched her face with his finger tips. Then he cupped her face. "Hello darlin'" Then Logan pulled Ororo down to him and kissed her deeply.   
  
Storm broke the kiss and pulled away from him. She couldn't believe who she was seeing, and kissing. She staggered to her feet and Logan soon followed. "Logan?" She asked again.   
  
"Logan. You have to go now." Erik said as he came towards them. "The gateway is closing. You have to go now."   
  
Logan smiled at Storm who looked as if she were going to pass out. Then he turned to the young man. "We get him?"   
  
"Alexandria and her mother took him out. He won't be hurting anyone ever again." Eric pointed to were the collector's body was and then to the men and women who'd lived in the camp with them who were taking care of the last of the collector's men.   
  
"Guess there's no point in askin' ya to come with us." Logan said as he took a crushed cigar out of his pocket. "Got some people back there who could teach you to control that mind of yours.  
  
Erik looked over at the gateway and then at the mess around him and then at Logan. "They need me here right now." Logan nodded. "It was an honor, Wolverine."  
  
"Your a good kid. You'll be a good leader. Just like your ol' man. Your folks would be proud of you, Erik"   
  
Erik ran his hand through his hair then nodded. "Thank you.. For everything. Tell Lexie.. Tell her that she did good."   
  
Logan nodded and shook the boy's hand. Then he turned to the three gawking women. "You lot comin'? They nodded and followed him though the gateway. They all stood there and watched as it closed.   
  
Then Jean looked at Logan. "Your really you?" Logan nodded. "Are you ok?" Again Logan nodded. "Good. Welcome home!" Jean hugged him and then pushed him away. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Now you wanna tell me what the big idea was kissing my wife!"   
  
The cigar fell from Logan's mouth as he looked at Jean, then at Ororo who had taken hold of Jean's hand. Logan blinked several times before passing out. Rogue caught him with a chuckle.   
  
"Guess Lexie didn't tell him."   
  
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That's the end of this one, Folks. I hoped you enjoyed it. I want to thank Jubes2681and wolvster for their reviews. I already have a second book worked out on paper, and even a prequel cause I'm a sap for love stories and wanna get out how Ororo and Logan and Ororo and Jean hooked up. In the second book we'll see how Ororo deals with having Logan back and to whom her heart belongs. Will she stay with Jean? Will she go back to Logan? Who does Alexandria want her with? Alexandria gets so things to deal with as well. She'll be 16 soon, and she didn't get a chance to say good by to Erik. So stay tuned..   
  
Peace.. DoS... 


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